The Cow; The Cowry

The Cowry seems to be, somehow,
A sort of mouth‑piece for the Cow:
A speaking likeness one might say,
Which I’ve endeavored to portray.

Where this text comes from

First published in How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts (1917). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/robert-williams-wood_how-to-tell-the-birds-from-the-flowers-and-other-woodcuts, how-to-tell-the-birds-from-the-flowers.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L4.

Cite this poem

Robert Williams Wood (1868–1955). “The Cow; The Cowry.” First published in How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts (1917). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/robert-williams-wood/the-cow-the-cowry/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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