The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate

     When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter’s dregs made desolate

     The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

     Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

     Had sought their household fires.
.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be

     The Century’s corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

     The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

     Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

     Seemed fervourless as I.
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At once a voice arose among

     The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

     Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

     In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

     Upon the growing gloom.
.

So little cause for carolings

     Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

     Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

     His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

     And I was unaware.
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Click here to listen to Barte Wolffe read “The Darkling Thrush”

Click here to read an excellent essay about this poem