The Darling Thrush ~ by Thomas Hardy
Created | Updated Feb 13, 2007
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 scorched the sky
Like strings of broken lyres
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land’s sharp features seamed to be
The centuries 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
Seamed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arosse among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full hearted evensong
Of joy unlimited.
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 upon terrestrial things
Afar of nigh around
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed hope whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
~ Thomas Hardy