The Lost Shoe

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.