The Darkling Thrush
by Thomas Hardy
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was
spectre-gray,
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.
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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