Evensong

I leaned upon a coppice gate

When frost was specter-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 fervorless as I.

At once a voice burst forth among

The bleak twigs overhead

In 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.