Turtle Poems

Table of Contents

1. The Little Turtle

   by Vachel Lindsay

   
   

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   There was a little turtle.
   He lived in a box.
   He swam in a puddle.
   He climbed on the rocks.
   

   He snapped at a mosquito.
   He snapped at a flea.
   He snapped at a minnow.
   And he snapped at me.
   

   He caught the mosquito.
   He caught the flea.
   He caught the minnow.
   But he didn't catch me.
   

2. Excerpt from "Easter Eve"

   by Bliss Carman

   
   

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   Among the weeds and sticks and grasses under the hard black ice I saw
   An old mud-turtle poking about, as if he were putting his house to rights,
   Stiff with the cold perhaps, yet knowing enough to prepare for the winter nights.
   

   And here he is on a log this morning, sunning himself as calm as you please.
   But I want to know, when the lock of winter was sprung of a sudden, who kept the keys?
   Who told old nibbler to go to sleep safe and sound with the lily roots,
   And then in the first warm days of April —out to the sun with the greening shoots?
   

3. Reptilian Anatomy

   by Anonymous

   
   

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   "Bedad, that hurt!" and Patrick held
   A bleeding finger up to view.
   Erstwhiles he'd poked up shrimps and such
   To see just what the things would do.
   

   The Irishman's patrons gathered 'round;
   But not with sympathy — they laughed
   At Paddy's little turtle scrape —
   And, while the reptile crawled, they chaffed.
   

   Howld on, I want to know pfwhere is
   "His head," says Paddy's Irish tongue,
   "And pfwhere's his tail?" "Why so?" says one.
   "To know if I am bit or shtung!"
   

4. The Theoretic Turtle

   by Amos Russel Wells

   
   

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   The theoretic turtle started out to see the toad;
   He came to a stop at a liberty-pole in the middle of the road.
   "Now how, in the name of the spouting whale," the indignant turtle cried,
   "Can I climb this perpendicular cliff and get on the other side?
   If I only could make a big balloon I'd lightly over it fly;
   Or a very long ladder might reach the top though it does look fearfully high.
   If a beaver were in my place, he'd gnaw a passage through with his teeth;
   I can't do that but I can dig a tunnel and pass beneath."
   He was digging his tunnel with might and main, when a dog looked down at the hole.
   "The easiest way, my friend," sald he, "is to walk around the pole."
   

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