The Darkling Thrush flings his soul again.

 

This poem was written by Thomas Hardy at the cusp of the 20th century, during 1899 to be exact. He wrote about the dying century and the surrounding gloom relieved only by the cheery thrush's 'illimited' song of joy.

The darkling thrush flings his soul again to relieve the gathering gloom surrounding the ebbing 2022.

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate

When Frost was spectre-grey,

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.