Lyric Poem · Hope
The Darkling Thrush
by Thomas Hardy · 1900
1I leant upon a coppice gate
2When Frost was spectre-gray,
3And Winter's dregs made desolate
4The weakening eye of day.
5The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
6Like strings of broken lyres,
7And all mankind that haunted nigh
8Had sought their household fires.
9The land's sharp features seemed to be
10The Century's corpse outleant,
11His crypt the cloudy canopy,
12The wind his death-lament.
13The ancient pulse of germ and birth
14Was shrunken hard and dry,
15And every spirit upon earth
16Seemed fervorless as I.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy — quilloak.com/poems/the-darkling-thrush
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Darkling Thrush
- Poet
- Thomas Hardy
- Published
- 1900
- Length
- 32 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Rhyming Poems
- Themes
- Hope, Nature, Winter
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 32 lines · 4 octaves
- Line length
- Lines run 6-8 syllables (median 7). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the cited edition and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Thomas Hardy1840–1928
- Source record
- WikisourceThe Darkling Thrush by thomas-hardy, Wikisource transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1900
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 f9d3dd86dd5775a8…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.