54652: The Green Roads

<p dir="ltr"> The green roads that end in the forest<br> Are strewn with white goose feathers this June,<br> Life marks left behind by someone gone to the forest<br> To show his track. But he has never come back.<br> Down each green road a cottage looks at the forest.<br> Round one the nettle towers; two are bathed in flowers.<br> An old man along the green road to the forest<br> Strays from one, from another a child alone.<br> In the thicket bordering the forest,<br> All day long a thrush twiddles his song.<br> It is old, but the trees are young in the forest,<br> All but one like a castle keep, in the middle deep.<br> That oak saw the ages pass in the forest:<br> They were a host, but their memories are lost,<br> For the tree is dead: all things forget the forest<br> Excepting perhaps me, when now I see<br> The old man, the child, the goose feathers at the edge of the forest,<br> And hear all day long the thrush repeat his song.<br></p>