One day thru the primeval wood
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail, all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.
Since then 300 years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still, he left behind his trail
And thereby hangs my mortal tale.
The trail was taken up 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 would in and out
And dodged, and turned, and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ‘twas such a crooked path
But still they followed; do not laugh
The first migrations of the calf.
And thru 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 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 thus, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renown metropolis.
And men, two centuries and a half
Trod the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a 100 thousand route
Followed the zigzag calf about.
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A 100 thousand men were led
By one calf, near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way
And lost 100 years per 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 proud 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 now 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.
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