The Way Through the Woods (by Rudyard Kipling)

"The Way Through the Woods" by Rudyard Kipling

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.

The poem with the stressed

syllables underlined:

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.

Notes:

        The structure of this poem is very

interesting. Poems of this complicated

structure are typically not long. Long

poems typically have a much more 

simple structure: couplets of alternatively

rhyming lines. In this poem, the 2nd and 

4th line rhyme, then an unrhyming line

separates it from the next part of the poem

in which the 6th, 8th, 9th and 11th line 

rhyme with each other. The two verses

are essentially three quatrains squashed

together, with an extra line at the end.

Within the third and 7th line there is an

internal rhyme: rain/gain, neath/heath,

cools/pools, beat/feet. Internal rhymes

like this are a feature of Irish Gaelic

poetry and some Irish folk songs in

English. I think that it is very likely

that Kipling heard such Irish folk songs

from Irishmen in the British army. 

        The poem conveys a feeling of 

nostalgia for the past. Namely, how you

can remember a thing so clearly that 

does not exist anymore, when you

return to where you experienced it. In

this case, the road through a woods. 

The poet says: "yet, if you enter the

woods... you will hear the beat of a

horse's feet". By "you" he means

himself. He can still imagine those 

things, because he heard them once;

anyone was did not would not hear

them. Nostalgia for the past has

always been a popular subject for

poems and songs until recently. The

Beatles' "In my Life" and Van 

Morrison's "Brown-eyed Girl" are

ridiculous songs by young men

yearning for their not-too-long-ago

past, but clearly they are following

a convention of doing so. 

        

        Everyone feels nostalgic for

places that do not exist anymore or

are not the same, one almost feels

like a ghost or a visitor from

another planet, when you revisit

them. This is the eerie feeling

expressed in this poem. The last extra

line is particularly effective in 

creating the haunting and dramatic

feeling that the poet/speaker is

trying to convince himself that

the road is gone, but he cannot

believe it.

        "The swish of a skirt in the dew"

appears to be interpreted by most

people to be a reference to a 

to a female's skirt, perhaps a

female riding a horse. It seems to me,

however, that it refers to the skirt of

a wagon or carriage, The words

 "horse's feet" and "cantering through"

 refer to a horse, not a woman, and

seem all part of the same thought. 

The skirt of a car, is that part below

the door, so I assume that that might

might be what some people called the 

lower part of a carriage or cart too. 

Or it may refer to a decorative skirt

put over a cart or carriage for some

celebration. 

        The "road" in question is surely

just two ribbons of bare earth created

by the constant passage of wheeled

vehicles, of a sort that you see in the

country. 

You can hear and see me reciting 

this poem at: 

Poetry & Folklore - YouTube

Farewell to Barn and Stack and Tree (by A.E. Housman). Poem 8 of A Shropeshire Lad.

 “Farewell to barn and stack and tree” is

the first line of poem VII (8) in Housman’s 

A Shropshire Lad. You can hear me reciting at:

Poetry & Folklore - YouTube

The Poem:

‘Farewell to barn and stack and tree,

     Farewell to Severn shore.

Terence, look your last at me,

     For I come home no more.

 

‘The sun burns on the half-mown hill,

     By now the blood is dried;

And Maurice amongst the hay lies still

     And my knife is in his side.

 

‘My mother thinks us long away;

    ’Tis time the field were mown.

She had two sons at rising day,

     To-night she’ll be alone.

 

‘And here’s a bloody hand to shake,

     And oh, man, here’s good-bye;

We’ll sweat no more on scythe and rake,

     My bloody hands and I.

 

 ‘I wish you strength to bring you pride,

     And a love to keep you clean,

And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,

     At racing on the green.

 

‘Long for me the rick will wait,

    And long will wait the fold,

And long will stand the empty plate,

    And dinner will be cold.’

Scanned Version

(Accented syllables underlined):

   

‘Farewell to barn and stack and tree,

     Farewell to Severn shore.

Terence, look your last at me,

     For I come home no more.

 

‘The sun burns on the half-mown hill,

     By now the blood is dried;

And Maurice amongst the hay lies still

     And my knife is in his side.

 

‘My mother thinks us long away;

    ’Tis time the field were mown.

She had two sons at rising day,

     To-night she’ll be alone.

 

‘And here’s a bloody hand to shake,

     And oh, man, here’s good-bye;

We’ll sweat no more on scythe and rake,

    My bloody hands and I.

 

 ‘I wish you strength to bring you pride,

     And a love to keep you clean,

And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,

     At racing on the green.

 ‘Long for me the rick will wait,

    And long will wait the fold,

And long will stand the empty plate,

    And dinner will be cold.’ 

Comments on Construction: 

The pattern each verse follows

(with variations) is: 

˘ / ˘ ˘ ˘ / ˘ ˘

   ˘ / ˘ ˘ ˘ /

˘ / ˘ ˘ ˘ / ˘ ˘

   ˘ / ˘ ˘ ˘ / 

Comments on the Text:

        This is one of the few poems in

A Shropshire Lad that mentions Terrence,

who was meant to be a central figure of a

planned cycle of poems to be called:

"The Poems of Terence Hearsay". He is

also mentioned in poem LXII: "Terence,

this is stupid stuff." Housman must have

imagined a whole story with characters, but

gave it up at some point due to the difficulty

of creating a full story or perhaps realizing

that the material would be too scandalous

for the time. The Beatles similarly seemed to

have abandoned their idea of an album

about Sargent Pepper, due to similar diffi-

culties in creating and sticking to an am-

bitious and continuous story. It is a pity in

both cases. In this little poem we can al-

ready see a drama consisting of four

characters: the speaker, Terence, Maurice

and his mother, and we can even guess the

sort of relationships they have between

therm. The speaker seems more con-

cerned about Terence's future than his own,

which fits the theme of deep male friendship

often encountered in the collection. The

images of the empty plate, the bloody hands,

and Maurice lying with a knife in this side,

all create a vivid dramatic world, even if we

are missing pieces of the puzzle.

        The "Lammastride" mentioned is a

summer festival, pre-Christian and Celtic

in origin, I assume. The equivalent to the

Irish "Lughnasa", Shropshire being close

to Wales, it is no surprise that they would

have such celebrations. Horse racing

("racing on the green") seems to be part

of the activities.

assume horse racing