Thomas Hardy- Natural Inspiration

Many know Thomas Hardy, a Victorian realist, for his novels like Jude the Obscure and Far From the Madding Crowd.  However, Hardy regarded himself primarily as a poet.  The Darkling Thrush is a stirring account of the inspiration he derived from nature; his thrush, daring to sing amid the cold, dark of winter. Simply Brilliant!  

 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 trembling though

            His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, wherof he knew

            And I was unaware.