November 12, 2006

Lost road through the woods,oak ash and thorn

Jo you are so right, when I was taking the photo I had a poem in mind and couldn't recall it. Have just been through my journal and here is the one I was thinking of by Rudyard Kipling, was that the same as you?

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.

Also his oak, ash and thorn strikes chords with me:)

Of all the trees that grow so fair, old England to adorn,
Greater are none beneath the sun than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn:
Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn,good sirs,
All on a midsummer's morn,
Surely we sing of no little thing
In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
Oak of the clay lived many a day o'er ever Aeneas began,
Ash of the loam was a lady at home when Brut was an outlaw man,
And Thorn of the down saw new Troy town,from which was London born,
Witness hereby the ancient try of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
Yew that is old, in churchyard mould, he breedeth a mighty bow,
Alder for shoes do wise men choose,and Beech for cups also,
But when you have killed, and your bowl it is filled, and your shoes are clean outworn,
Back you must speed for all that you need to Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
Elm, she hates mankind, and waits till every gust be laid,
To drop a limb on the head of him that anyway trusts her shade,
But whether a lad be sober or sad, or mellow with ale from the horn,
He'll take no wrong when he lyeth along 'neath Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
Oh, do not tell the priest our plight, or he would call it a sin,
But we've been out in the woods all night, a-conjuring summer in,
And we bring you good news by word of mouth, good news for cattle and corn:
Now is the sun come up from the south, by Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.

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