Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS by RUDYARD KIPLING

Poem Explanation Poet Analysis

First Line: THEY SHUT THE ROAD THROUGH THE WOODS
Last Line: BUT THERE IS NO ROAD THROUGH THE WOODS.
Subject(s): ENVIRONMENT; FORESTS; ROADS; TIME; TREES; ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION; ECOLOGY; CONSERVATION; WOODS; PATHS; TRAILS;
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 road 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-ringed 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.



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