"The Way Through The Woods" by Rudyard Kipling

 

The Way Through The Woods

THEY shut the road through the woods

Seventy years ago.

Weather and rain have undone it again,

And now you would never know

There was once a path through the woods

Before they planted the trees:

It is underneath the coppice and heath,

And the thin anemones.

Only the keeper sees

That, where the ring-dove broods

And the badgers roll at ease,

There was once a road through the woods.

 

Yet, if you enter the woods

Of a summer evening late,

When the night-air cools on the trout-ring’d pools

Where the otter whistles his mate

(They fear not men in the woods

Because they see so few),

You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet

And the swish of a skirt in the dew,

Steadily cantering through

The misty solitudes,

As though they perfectly knew

The old lost road through the woods ...

But there is no road through the woods.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

Poem Video👇

https://youtu.be/5nHyuRcgJr0

Who wrote the poem "The Way Through The Woods"?

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865 - January 18, 1936)

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, novelist, and poet. He was one of the most popular writers in England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was born in India, and his work including "The Jungle Book" showed much Indian influence. 

"The Way Through The Woods" explanation

In the poem, the speaker describes a conflicting perspective about a road in the woods. On the one hand, he mourns about the disappearance of the road and the loss of access to the beautiful nature inside the forest. On the other hand, he cherishes a resurgence of nature caused by the loss of the road.