• The Darkling Thrush

  • Nov 11 2023
  • Length: 11 mins
  • Podcast

The Darkling Thrush

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  • Summary

  • Readings and Thoughts on Poetry, Faith & The Imagination.

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    The Darkling Thrush

    BY THOMAS HARDY

    I leant upon a coppice gate

    When Frost was spectre-grey,

    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.
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