<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Ballad of the Bootmaker <br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/>[A Fable for Poets] </h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">I WENT into a bootmaker's,</p><p class="line">A pair of boots to buy.</p><p class="line">Upon the morrow morn those boots</p><p class="line">Let in the rain and sky.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Then to the bootman I returned,</p><p class="line">And cold, cold were my feet;</p><p class="line">But my vocabulary was</p><p class="line">Of equatorial heat.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"'Tis true," quoth he, "the boots you bought</p><p class="line">Are palpably a pair</p><p class="line">Not made for such ignoble ends</p><p class="line">As vulgar use and wear.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Rather have they been fashioned forth</p><p class="line">By one who did disdain</p><p class="line">The shallow art of making boots</p><p class="line">That will keep out the rain.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"His loftier dream is to conceive</p><p class="line">A boot that sets no bars</p><p class="line">To the free ingress of the heavens</p><p class="line">And visits of the stars.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"In his impassioned bootmanship</p><p class="line">Foiled gropings are discerned</p><p class="line">Toward some visionary boot</p><p class="line">For which the ages yearned.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"His baffled flight, his broken wing.</p><p class="line">His heart-cry and his pain.</p><p class="line">Are worth a million perfect boots</p><p class="line">That will keep out the rain."</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Your words," said I, "are passing fine,</p><p class="line">But let my boots be made</p><p class="line">By handicraftsmen who were not</p><p class="line">Too great to learn their trade.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"The thirst for the Infinitudes</p><p class="line">Will scarce with me atone</p><p class="line">For upper leathers badly botched</p><p class="line">And soles as badly sewn.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"I cannot rate his bootcraft high</p><p class="line">Who principally lives</p><p class="line">To obliterate the differences</p><p class="line">Observed 'twixt boots and sieves.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Not that I would on Art's free spirit</p><p class="line">A deadening yoke impose!</p><p class="line">Let boots express the bootmaker</p><p class="line">And all he feels and knows.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"'Tis meet, 'tis well! But I shall yet</p><p class="line">For evermore retain</p><p class="line">My old, my early love of boots</p><p class="line">That will keep out the rain."</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">With that I doffed the boots I loathed,</p><p class="line">And nought besides did say.</p><p class="line">But heaved them at the bootster's head</p><p class="line">And bootless went my way.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">To muse upon a universe</p><p class="line">That seemed, when I was young,</p><p class="line">A place where boots were better made,</p><p class="line">And songs were better sung.</p></div></body></html> · Great War