The Crow; The Crocus

Some are unable, as you know,
To tell the Crocus from the Crow;
The reason why is just be‑caws
They are not versed in Nature’s laws.
The noisy cawing Crows all come,
Obedient to the Cro’custom,
A large Crow Caw‑cus to convoke.
You never hear the Crocus croak!

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–#L8.

Cite this poem

Robert Williams Wood (1868–1955). “The Crow; The Crocus.” 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-crow-the-crocus/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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