Page 79 - English Expedition Class 6

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The Way Through the Woods

Rudyard Kipling

The poem gives us a glimpse into the mysterious sounds and shadows which often linger
behind people long after they have left. An old path through the woods has been long lost
under the trees and undergrowth. Yet the presence of the people who once frequented
the road can be felt amidst the wild freedom of nature. Are they ghosts? Or are they the
fading memories of lost people and events which exist only in our minds?

Th ey shut the road through the woods Yet, if you enter the woods
Seventy years ago. Of a summer evening late,
Weather and rain have undone it again, When the night-air cools on the
And now you would never know trout-ringed pools
Th ere was once a road through the woods Where the otter whistles his mate,
Before they planted the trees. (Th ey fear not men in the woods,
1
2
It is underneath the coppice and heath , Because they see so few.)
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5
And the thin anemones . You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
Only the keeper sees And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
4
Th at, where the ring dove broods , Steadily cantering through
And the badgers roll at ease, Th e misty solitudes,
Th ere was once a road through the As though they perfectly knew
woods. Th e old lost road through the woods . . .
But there is no road through the woods.

1 coppice: a woodland where trees and plants are regularly cut down to stumps to encourage further growth
2 heath: a wasteland overgrown with shrubs
3 anemone: a kind of plant with brightly coloured fl owers
4 broods: (here) sits on its eggs to hatch them
5 beat: a rhythmic sound

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