Bits & Pieces Index

The Calf Path

One day thru the primeval wood,

a calf walked home, as good calves should,

and made a trail, all bent askew,

a crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then 300 years have fled

and I infer that calf is dead,

but still, he left behind his trail

and thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up the next day

by a lone dog that passed that way.

And then a wise bellwether sheep

pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,

and drew the flocks behind him too

as good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade

thru 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

for it was such a crooked path,

but still they followed, do not laugh,

the first migrations of that calf.

And through the winding woods they stalked

because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane

That bent, and turned, and turned again.

This crooked lane became a road

where many a poor horse, with his load

toiled on beneath the boiling sun

travelling some three miles in one.

And thus a century and a half

they trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,

the road became a village street.

And this, before men were aware,

a city’s crowded thoroughfare.

And soon the central street was this

of a renowned metropolis.

And men, two centuries and a half,

trod the footsteps of that calf.

A 100 thousand men were led

by one calf, near three centuries dead.

A moral lesson this might teach

were I ordained, and called to preach.

For men are prone to go it blind

along the calf paths 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 paths that others do.

They keep the paths a sacred groove

along which all their lives they move.

But how the wise old wood gods laugh,

who saw that first primeval calf.

Ah, many things this tale might teach,

but I am not ordained to preach.

(Sam Foss - 1895) modified by me