Lindgren Family - Brian Lindgren - The Calf Path

This is a US Coast Guard - Official Message

 

THE CALF PATH

BY

LCDR Charles E. Harrison

One day through the primeval wood

A calf walked home as good calves should;

But made a trail all bent askew,

A crooked trail as calves all do.

Since then, three 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 dog that passed that way;

and the a wise bell-wether sheep

Pursed the trail over vale and steep;

Drawing the flock behind him too

(As all good bell-wethers always do.)

And from that day, over hill and glade,

Through those woods a path was made,

And many men wound in and out,

Dodged and Turned, and bent about.

They uttered words of righteous wrath
Because of such a crooked path.
But still they followed--it's no laugh--
The first migrations of that calf.

Soon this path became a lane

That bent and turned without aim.

Then this lane became a road

Where sundrie horses under load,

Traveled miles under burning sun

Just to find They've come but one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For a century and a half,

Men trod the footsteps of that calf:

And before they realized

The forest had been civilized.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet;

And the road became a village street.

Then before men were aware,

It became a crowded city thoroughfare.

For two centuries and a half,

Men followed the footsteps of that calf;

A hundred thousand people led

By one calf near three centuries dead.

For man is prone to go it blind

Along the calf paths of the mind.

He works away from sun to sun,

To do what others have already done.

The follow in the beaten track;

Out and in...Forth and back.

Their winding course to pursue,

So to do as others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove

Along which all their lives they move;

But how the wise old wood Gods laughed

When first they say that silly calf.

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