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b"T Hardy read by Classic Poetry Aloud:\\nhttp://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/\\n\\nGiving voice to the poetry of the past.\\n\\n---------------------------------------\\n\\nThe Darkling Thrush\\nby Thomas Hardy (1840 \\u2013 1928)\\n\\nI leant upon a coppice gate\\n When Frost was spectre-gray,\\nAnd Winter's dregs made desolate\\n The weakening eye of day.\\nThe tangled bine-stems scored the sky\\n Like strings of broken lyres,\\nAnd all mankind that haunted nigh\\n Had sought their household fires.\\n\\nThe land's sharp features seemed to be\\n The Century's corpse outleant,\\nHis crypt the cloudy canopy,\\n The wind his death-lament.\\nThe ancient pulse of germ and birth\\n Was shrunken hard and dry,\\nAnd every spirit upon earth\\n Seemed fervourless as I.\\n\\nAt once a voice arose among\\n The bleak twigs overhead\\nIn a full-hearted evensong\\n Of joy illimited;\\nAn aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,\\n In blast-beruffled plume,\\nHad chosen thus to fling his soul\\n Upon the growing gloom.\\n\\n\\nSo little cause for carolings\\n Of such ecstatic sound\\nWas written on terrestrial things\\n Afar or nigh around,\\nThat I could think there trembled through\\n His happy good-night air\\nSome blessed Hope, whereof he knew\\n And I was unaware.\\n\\nFirst aired: 17 November 2007\\n\\nFor hundreds more poetry readings, visit the Classic Poetry Aloud index\\n\\nReading \\xa9 Classic Poetry Aloud 2009"