Have you ever noticed that it is only when the family is in a hurry that the lost shoe phenomenon occurs? How one cannot be in the vicinity of its mate is a mystery. Especially when summer comes and the shoes are despised, they are found in any number of remarkable places. The Outdoors calls to bare feet, and, consequently shoes are cast aside, some pairs never to be reunited.

Here’s a fun rhyme from one of the beloved poets of my childhood, who, as I consider it, may be the first poet I made a personal connection with. He had a lifetime fascination with the special imagination of childhood, and in his poems, you can tell he never quite lost that gift himself. –Liz

The Lost Shoe

by Walter De La Mare

POOR little Lucy

By some mischance,

Lost her shoe

As she did dance :

‘Twas not on the stairs,

Not in the hall ;

Not where they sat

At supper at all.

She looked in the garden,

But there it was not ;

Henhouse, or kennel,

Or high dovecote.

Dairy and meadow,

And wild woods through

Showed not a trace

Of Lucy’s shoe.

Bird nor bunny

Nor glimmering moon

Breathed a whisper

Of where ’twas gone.

It was cried and cried,

Oyez and Oyez!

In French, Dutch, Latin,

And Portuguese.

Ships the dark seas

Went plunging through,

But none brought news

Of Lucy’s shoe ;

And still she patters

In silk and leather,

O’er snow, sand, shingle,

In every weather ;

Spain, and Africa,

Hindustan,

Java, China,

And lamped Japan ;

Plain and desert,

She hops hops through,

Pernambuco

To gold Peru ;

Mountain and forest,

And river too,

All the world over

For her lost shoe.

—–   —–   —–

Photo by Erin Tegeler

• About
• Latest Posts

Liz Cottrill

When Liz's kids wonder what's for dinner, she has been known to suggest "books."

Latest posts by Liz Cottrill (see all)