The Darkling Thrush

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 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 fervorless as I
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In 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