The Darkling Thrush

I leant 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 of broken lyres.

The land's sharp features seemed to me
The Century's corpse outlearnt
Its crypt the cloudy canopy
The wind its death-lament
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry
And every spirit upon the Earth
Seemed fervor less as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead.

So little cause for caroling
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.

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small
With blast-be ruffled plume
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.