The Ibis; The ’Ibiscus

Robert Williams Wood (1868–1955) · How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts · 1917

The sacred Ibis, one might say,
Was classified a “Bird-of-Pray”
His body, after death, was dried,
Embalmed in pitch, and mummyfied,
And thus was handed down to us
In some old King’s sarcophagus.
The Mallow, growing in the bogs,
(’Ibiscus termed by pedagogues)
Is much opposed to dessication,
And bears no marks of veneration.

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–#L10.

Cite this poem

Robert Williams Wood (1868–1955). “The Ibis; The ’Ibiscus.” 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-ibis-the-ibiscus/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

More by Robert Williams Wood