The Calf Path

The Calf Path
ET staff writer
ET staff writer
01 July, 1997 2 min read

One day through the primeval wood

A calf walked home, as good calves should,

But made a trail all bent askew,

A crooked path – 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 moral 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 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 uttered words of righteous wrath,

Because ’twas such a crooked path.

woodland path SOURCE nicktr/Pixabay

But still they followed along that path

The first migrations of that calf,

Who through the winding woodway 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 burning sun,

And travelled 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.

SOURCE Free-Photos/Pixabay

Each day a hundred thousand, no doubt,

Followed this zig-zag calf about,

And over 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 a 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 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 dubious course pursue,

To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove

Along which all their lives they move,

But how the wise old woods do laugh,

Who saw the first primeval path.

Ah, many a thing this tale might teach –

But then, I’m not ordained to preach!

Attributed to Edward Fudge

ET staff writer
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