The Worm – 1811

Cowslip or More Cautionary Stories in Verse
By Mrs. Elizabeth Turner
1811

The Worm

As Sally sat upon the ground,
A little crawling worm she found,
Among the garden dirt;

And when she saw the worm, she scream’d,
And ran away and cried,
As if she had been hurt.

Mamma afraid some serious harm
Made Sally scream, was in alarm,
And left the parlour then;
But when the cause she came to learn,
She bade her daughter back return,
To see the worm again.

The worm they found kept writhing round,
Until it sunk beneath the ground,
And Sally learn’d that day,
That worms are very harmless things,
With neither teeth, nor claws, nor stings,
To frighten her away.