The Tern; The Turnip

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

To tell the Turnip from the Tern,
A thing which everyone should learn,
Observe the Tern up in the air,
See how he turns, and now compare
Him with this in‑ert veg‑et‑able,
Who thus to turn is quite unable,
For he is rooted to the spot,
While as we see, the Tern is not:
He is not always doomed to be
Thus bound to earth e‑tern‑ally
For “cooked to a tern” may be inferred,
To change the Turnip to a bird.

Observe the Turnip in the Pot.
The Tern is glad that he is not!

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]

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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–#L14.

Cite this poem

Robert Williams Wood (1868–1955). “The Tern; The Turnip.” 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-tern-the-turnip/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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