The Calf Path
By Sam Walter Foss (1895)

One day through a primeval wood, a calf walked just as a good calf should,
But made a trail all bent askew, a crooked trail , as all calves do.
The trail was taken up next day by a lone dog that passed that way.
And then a wise bellwether sheep pursued the trail over vale and steep
And led his flock behind him too as all good bellwethers do.
And from that day over hill and glade through those old woods a path was made
And many a man wound in and out, and dodged and turned and bent about
And uttered words of righteous wrath because it was 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 his load
Toiled beneath the burning sun, and traveled a good three miles in one.

The years passed on in swiftness, fleet; the road became a village street,
And thus 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, tread the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a one hundred thousand route followed that zig, zag calf about
And over his crooked journey went the traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led by a calf near three centuries dead.

They following his crooked way, lost one hundred years every day.
For thus such deference is lent, to a 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 from sun to sun, to do what other men have done.
They follow the well beaten track, out and in and forth and back.
And still their devious course pursue, to keep the paths that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove, along which all their lives they move. 
 But how the wise old wood gods laugh, who saw the first primeval calf! 
 Ah! many things this tale might teach - but I am not ordained to preach.

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