When I Was A Barefoot Rover

Let’s do another poem today. This one is from 1897, and the only attribution is to “Chicago Inter Ocean”.

It’s not specifically about going barefoot, but makes the loss of going barefoot part of the lament of the passing of those younger days.

          When I Was a Barefoot Rover

Oh, the spoil and greed in the world of men
  And the strife that lives forever,
Are lost in the ways and dear old days
  That the years can never sever.
I’d pass the haunts and marts of men,
  And all its joys, moreover,
To live and dream one boyish dream
  When I was a barefoot rover.

The shady lane, by the rip’ning grain,
  And the meadows again to wander;
The willow’d rill beyond the hill,
  To the pickerel pond “down yonder.”
To lie in the cool of the shade and dream
  My youthful dreams all over,
I’d give all the world has doled to me
  To be a barefoot rover.

The bees and birds, the lowing herds,
  The muddy cattle wallow:
The hollow stump where squirrels slunk
  And the nuts in “chipmunk hollow;”
The faint, sweet smell from the ferny dell
  Where the wild flow’rs used to hover,
And the woods, and brooks, and secret nooks
  Were mine—a barefoot rover.

The chirp of birds, the lowing herds,
  And the bumble bees’ dull droning
Is music wall’d from the surging throng
  With its never ceasing moaning.
And I’d pass the haunts and marts of men,
  And its arts and joys, moreover,
to lie and dream one boyish dream
  When I was a barefoot rover.

 

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