The Darkling Thrush
The Darkling Thrush
---by Thomas Hardy
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangle bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broke 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 amont
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 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.
December, 1900
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I didn't remember why this poem touched me so. But now I do. I hope this poem touches someone else in the same way it has touched me again. By the way, my English teacher from my Senior year in High School gave me this. Mr. Olson, Thanks.
---by Thomas Hardy
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangle bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broke 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 amont
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 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.
December, 1900
------------------------------------------
I didn't remember why this poem touched me so. But now I do. I hope this poem touches someone else in the same way it has touched me again. By the way, my English teacher from my Senior year in High School gave me this. Mr. Olson, Thanks.