THE DARKLING THRUSH
I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre gray,
And Winter’s dregs made * desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled pine-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 gathering gloom. So little cause for carollings 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. —Thomas Hardy.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/SUNAK19270420.2.120
Bibliographic details
Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 24, 20 April 1927, Page 12
Word Count
166THE DARKLING THRUSH Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 24, 20 April 1927, Page 12
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