The Darkling Thrush - Paul Kelly, James Ledger, Alice Keath

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 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 fervorless as I

At once a voice arose 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