The+Darkling+Thrist

The Darkling Thrush
by Thomas Hardy 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. 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.