I leant upon a coppice gate, <br />When Frost was spectre-gray, <br />And Winter's dregs made desolate <br />The weakening eye of day. <br />The tangled bine-stems scored the sky <br />Like strings of broken lyres, <br />And all mankind that haunted nigh <br />Had sought their household fires. <br /> <br />The land's sharp features seemed to me <br />The Century's corpse outleant, <br />Its crypt the cloudy canopy, <br />The wind its death-lament. <br />The ancient pulse of germ and birth <br />Was shrunken hard and dry, <br />And every spirit upon earth <br />Seemed fervorless as I. <br /> <br />At once a voice arose among <br />The bleak twigs overhead, <br />In a full-hearted evensong <br />Of joy illimited. <br />An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small, <br />With blast-beruffled plume, <br />Had chosen thus to fling his soul <br />Upon the growing gloom. <br /> <br />So little cause for carolings <br />Of such ecstatic sound <br />Was written on terrestrial things <br />Afar or nigh around, <br />That I could think there trembled through <br />His happy good-night air <br />Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew, <br />And I was unaware.<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-darkling-thrush/
