The Pea; The Pewee

To tell the Pewee from the Pea,
Requires great per‑spi‑ca‑city.
Here in the pod we see the Pea,
While perched close by is the Pewee;
The Pea he hears the Pewee peep,
While Pewee sees the wee Pea weep,
There’ll be but little time to see,
How Pewee differs from the Pea.

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 Pea; The Pewee.” 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-pea-the-pewee/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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