The Way 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.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was the first English writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was also chosen on several occasions for a knighthood, yet turned it down.

A somewhat controversial figure, he is thought by many to extol the virtues of imperialism, yet many scholars believe he was being ironic and pointing out the failings of empire rule.

Kipling joined the Imperial War Graves Commission and selected the biblical phrase inscribed on many British war memorials: "Their Name Liveth For Evermore."

Let's hope our country's forests are not doomed to the same ghostly fate as the road in his poem. Sign the Save Our Forests petition at www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/save-our-forests

by Holly Smith