Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE OLD SHOE, by FRANCOIS COPPEE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE OLD SHOE, by                    
First Line: Twas on a bright, warm afternoon in may
Last Line: In the old shoe shall growth of flowers be seen.


'TWAS on a bright, warm afternoon in May,
I chanced beside a pleasant stream to stray.
Where every fleeting cloud was mirrored back.
I followed slowly whither led the track
Profuse with flowers, and sloping towards the edge
Slim reeds and poplars either margin hedge.
Far to the front I saw the river wind,
A bridge of single span the view confined,
The current murmured and the rushes swayed;
Now leaping, splashing, now the fishes played,
Leaving bright circles where the stream they met;
Oriole and Blackcap with its crown of jet
From leafy curtains poured responsive voice;
The songs from happy nests, the water's noise,
Sped with me as I mused and strolled along.
Lo! on a flowery bank the grass among,
'Mid golden buds that path and margin line,
Lay at my feet the earliest human sign;
I in that solitary spot had found,
Beneath the grass confounded with the ground,
A shoe, which there some wandering beggar left.
'Twas an old shoe, vile, ugly, soiled, and cleft,
Trod down at heel, and gaping at the sole,
Hideous as abject want, as base, as foul.
No doubt of yore 'twas by some soldier worn;
Then by a cobbler, though in state forlorn,
Sold from his wretched stall to some poor scamp.
Such shoes as through the length of Europe tramp,
And which one day all bloody, lame, and split,
The foot not quits them, but the foot they quit.
In this sad waif, ah, what a dismal theme!
Can convict's clog or the slave's fetter seem
Heavier than thou, shoe worn by vagrant's march?
Say! why wast left beneath this bridge's arch?
The stream should here be deep! This pool so still,
Has it not been a counsellor of ill
To the tired tramp, sick of his long sad route?
Say! crawled he hence, trailing his naked foot,
To beg for shoes at the first tavern near?
Or, having lost thee on the margin here,
Did the poor wretch, whom e'en his rags forsook,
Go and within the water's bosom look
To see if, when you sleep beneath the wave,
Need of new shoes or decent garb you have?
'Gainst the strange loathing suffered at the sight
Of this vile shoe, 'tis all in vain I fight.
Found in this rural spot, and all alone;
Crime-stained methinks it through the hulks has gone;
'Tis red, the leather drenched 'neath stormy sky;
I dream of murder--hear the villain fly
Far from the gasping wretch in some dark street,
Whose face is ground by nailed and bloody feet.
Vile thing! that in my pathway liest there,
Whether by crime rejected or despair.
Thou makest me shudder, and dost bring to mind
Before the flowers, and Nature fair and kind,
Before the skies that odorous breezes fill,
Before the Sun, th' Eternity of ill.
Yes, witness true as sad, thou dost confess
The whole world steeped in vice and wretchedness.
That they whose bleeding footprints stain the sand
Are apt, alas! in blood to dye their hand.
Lie there accursed, thou tool of crime or woe!
Yet what of this does Nature care or know,
By grass half hidden see e'en now it lies,
Hideous! It never scares the butterflies;
Reclaimed by earth, and made by mosses green,
In the old shoe shall growth of flowers be seen.





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