Thomas Hardy, Woodland Poetry Walk, Thorncombe Wood, led by Wendy Barter Smee

An inspiring walk through Thorncombe Wood this morning, organised by the National Trust and led by Wendy Barter Smee. I was very glad I joined the walk! Thank you, Wendy.

The Roman Road

The Roman Road runs straight and bare

As the pale parting-line in hair

Across the heath. And thoughtful men

Contrast its days of Now and Then,

And delve, and measure, and compare;

Visioning on the vacant air

Helmeted legionnaires, who proudly rear

The Eagle, as they pace again

The Roman Road.

But no tall brass-helmeted legionnaire

Haunts it for me. Uprises there

A mother’s form upon my ken,

Guiding my infant steps, as when

We walked that ancient thoroughfare,

The Roman Road.

In a Wood

Heart-halt and spirit-lame, 

City-opprest, 

Unto this wood I came 

As to a nest...

The Ivy-Wife

Throwing a Tree

Wendy Barter Smee

Domicilium

It faces west, and round the back and sides

High beeches, bending, hang a veil of boughs,

And sweep against the roof. Wild honeysucks

Climb on the walls, and seem to sprout a wish

(If we may fancy wish of trees and plants)

To overtop the apple trees hard-by.

Red roses, lilacs, variegated box

Are there in plenty, and such hardy flowers

As flourish best untrained. Adjoining these

Are herbs and esculents; and farther still

A field; then cottages with trees, and last

The distant hills and sky.

Behind, the scene is wilder. Heath and furze

Are everything that seems to grow and thrive

Upon the uneven ground. A stunted thorn

Stands here and there, indeed; and from a pit

An oak uprises, Springing from a seed

Dropped by some bird a hundred years ago.

In days bygone--

Long gone--my father's mother, who is now

Blest with the blest, would take me out to walk.

At such a time I once inquired of her

How looked the spot when first she settled here.

The answer I remember. 'Fifty years

Have passed since then, my child, and change has marked

The face of all things. Yonder garden-plots

And orchards were uncultivated slopes

O'ergrown with bramble bushes, furze and thorn:

That road a narrow path shut in by ferns,

Which, almost trees, obscured the passers-by.

Our house stood quite alone, and those tall firs

And beeches were not planted. Snakes and efts

Swarmed in the summer days, and nightly bats

Would fly about our bedrooms. Heathcroppers

Lived on the hills, and were our only friends;

So wild it was when we first settled here.'

More images from the walk: