{
 "id": "robert-williams-wood/the-tern-the-turnip",
 "title": "The Tern; The Turnip",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Williams Wood",
 "poet_slug": "robert-williams-wood",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts",
 "book_slug": "how-to-tell-the-birds-from-the-flowers-and-other-woodcuts",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 21,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts (1917)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924027175250"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-williams-wood_how-to-tell-the-birds-from-the-flowers-and-other-woodcuts",
  "file": "how-to-tell-the-birds-from-the-flowers.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33346",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924027175250",
   "https://archive.org/details/animalanaloguesv00woodrich"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To tell the Turnip from the Tern,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A thing which everyone should learn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Observe the Tern up in the air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See how he turns, and now compare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Him with this in‑ert veg‑et‑able,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who thus to turn is quite unable,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For he is rooted to the spot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While as we see, the Tern is not:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He is not always doomed to be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus bound to earth e‑tern‑ally",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For “cooked to a tern” may be inferred,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To change the Turnip to a bird.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Observe the Turnip in the Pot.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Tern is glad that he is not!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}