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 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.

Composition Date:

December 31, 1900.

The lyrical form of this poem is ababcdcd.1.coppice: small wood or -stems: shoots from a climbing plant.6. of: \