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 from 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 outburst 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 carollings

   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.

December 1900.