The Way through the Woods

“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.

Analysis:

“The Way through the Woods” by Rudyard Kipling shows us the power nature has over man. I chose this poem because I thought it was unique how it gave me reminiscent feelings. I myself have experienced this and it just comes to show that no matter if we tear down nature it will grow back and take over yet again. There was a trail growing up that as I got older the grass grew less on the path that my friends and I would walk. Going back to that trail years later it’s hard for me to believe there was ever a trail through the woods because the grass had regrown and trees took over. The theme of this poem is power of nature over man. Rudyard describes a struggle between mans’ creations and natures power of regrowth.

“The Way through the Woods” is the title of this poem and it also tells us there was once a known 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 road through the woods”, this tells us that a lot of time has passed and natural occurrences have undone it again. Weather and rain have an impact on streets and sidewalks and with enough time nature can consume what was once there. Rudyard then tells us this road was here before all of the animals called this area a home. This shows that roads cannot take over nature even if it was completely covered weathering would have caused cracks and regrowth would have started from within if not already covered from grass and vines growing over the road. “The old lost road through the woods./But there is no road through the woods”, this line is ironic because of the fact the road was neither lost nor missing it was just no longer intended for use. Nature had taken over and that road became part of its anew. When this poem was written you could say it was about the industrialization: with everyone moving towards the cities and factories other areas were left for mother nature’s taking.

This poem uses nature and describes how powerful it is for what it is. Normally it gets the short end of the stick but there are many beautiful places created by nature and natural occurances. He discusses this while describing a road that he use to travel before it got shut down.

Source:
http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/the-way-through-the-woods/
Published: 1910