Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
The Darkling Thrush
1I leant upon a coppice gate
2 When Frost was spectre-gray,
3And Winter's dregs made desolate
4 The weakening eye of day.
5The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
6 Like strings of broken lyres,
7And all mankind that haunted nigh
8 Had sought their household fires.
9The land's sharp features seemed to be
10 The Century's corpse outleant,
11His crypt the cloudy canopy,
12 The wind his death-lament.
13The ancient pulse of germ and birth
14 Was shrunken hard and dry,
15And every spirit upon earth
16 Seemed fervourless as I.
17At once a voice arose among
18 The bleak twigs overhead
19In a full-hearted evensong
20 Of joy illimited;
21An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
22 In blast-beruffled plume,
23Had chosen thus to fling his soul
24 Upon the growing gloom.
25So little cause for carolings
26 Of such ecstatic sound
27Was written on terrestrial things
28 Afar or nigh around,
29That I could think there trembled through
30 His happy good-night air
31Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
32 And I was unaware.
Notes
1] coppice: small wood or copse.
5] bine-stems: shoots from a climbing plant.
6] of: "from" omitted 1903.
17] arose: "outburst" in 1903.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy (London: Macmillan and Co., 1932): 137. PR 4741 F32 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
1902
Publication date note: Poems of the Past and Present, 2nd edn. (1902 [1901]: London: Macmillan, 1903): 169-71. PR 4741 F03 Robarts Library
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/2/13
Composition date:
31
December
1900
Rhyme: ababcdcd
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