by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
I leaned upon a coppice
gate
When frost was specter-gray,
And winter's dregs made
desolate
The weakening eye of
day.
The tangled bine-stems
scored the sky
Like strings from broken
lyres,
And all mankind that
haunted neigh
Had sought their household
fires.
The land's sharp features
seemd 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 fervorless as
I.
At once a voice burst
forth among
The bleak twigs overhead
In full-hearted evensong
Of joy unlimited;
And 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.