Thomas Hardy

[mysticbluebell]

The Darkling Thrush
by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-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 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

[cpdhuet]

Famous English poet with an unusual use of passe words. As I remember, he was buried in two locations - his heart buried in Poet's Corner and his ashes some other place, possbly in his birthplace of Dorset, England.
CPD

[william]

I think it was the other way around CPD, his ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey and his heart rests with his wife Emma in Stinsford
Dorset. I only know because it seemed such a strange thing to do so I looked it up!
Lovely poetry.

[norma]

I love Thomas Hardy's poetry.