A Calfpath

by Sam Walter Foss

One day, through the primeval woods,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked path, as all calves do.

The trail was taken up the very next day
By a lone dog that passed that way.
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Persued that trail o'er vale and steep
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because 'twas such a crooked path.

The forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road
Where many a poor horse with its load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun...
And traveled some three miles in one!

The years passed on in swiftness fleet.
The road became a village street.
And this, before men were aware,
Became a city's crowded thoroughfare.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed that ziz-zag calf about.

And o'er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way
And lost some one hundreds years a day!

For thus such reverence is lent
To well established precedent.
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-path of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.

They follow in the beaten track,
And out, and in, and forth, and back,
And still their devious course pursue
To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove
Along which all their lives they move.
But, oh how the wise old wood-gods must laugh
Who saw that first primeval calf.

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