from "barefoot boy"

Feet that creep 'neath socks and shoes,
Bureaucrat and dandy use,
Shutting out the power and pride
Of the rolling countryside,
Give the barefoot boy his due!
Oh, for boyhood’s painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor’s rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools,
Of the wild bee’s morning chase,
Of the wild-flower’s time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell...

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