Edward Thomas’s “The Green Roads” takes you into a hushed, overgrown countryside where lanes soft with use end at the dark edge of a forest. In June, white goose feathers lie scattered like a trail—someone left these marks, heading into the trees, but never came back. Cottages face the woods: one smothered in nettles, two bathed in flowers. An old man strays from one, a child wanders from another. In the thicket, a thrush repeats its old song all day. The trees are mostly young, except a dead oak in the deep middle, like a castle keep. It watched ages pass, but its memories are lost. The speaker takes in the old man, the child, the feathers at the forest’s edge, the thrush’s song—and knows the forest forgets everything. Only he seems to remember, to hold onto these things. The mood is hushed and lonely, full of the ache of passing time, as if he’s the last witness to a vanishing world.
The Green Roads — Summary
THE green roads that end in the forest Are strewn with white goose feathers this June,
Like marks left behind by some one gone to the forest To show his track. But he has never come back.
Down each green road a cottage looks at the forest. Round one the nettle towers; two are bathed in flowers.
An old man along the green road to the forest Strays from one, from another a child alone.
In the thicket bordering the forest, All day long a thrush twiddles his song.
It is old, but the trees are young in the forest, All but one like a castle keep, in the middle deep.
That oak saw the ages pass in the forest: They were a host, but their memories are lost,
For the tree is dead: all things forget the forest Excepting perhaps me, when now I see
The old man, the child, the goose feathers at the edge of the forest, And hear all day long the thrush repeat his song.