The Calf Path

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

Since then two hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead
But still he left behind his trail
And thereby hangs my moral tale

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone doe that passed that way;
And then a wise bell-wether sheep
Pursued that trail o'er vale and steep
And drew the flock being him too
As good bell-wethers 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 crocked path.

But still they followed- do not laugh-
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way 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 hi load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun
And traveled 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 in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed the zigzag 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 one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

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 form sun to sun
To so what other men have done

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

But how the wise old wood gods laugh
Who say the forest primeval calf!
Ah! Many things this take might teach-
But I am not ordained to preach.

Sam Walters Foss (1858-1911)