Maggie's Farm

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 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 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.

Thomas Hardy

"...without human meaning,"

"Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware."

~~~

"The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down."

"In blast-beruffled plume,"

~~~


I love it. I love that nature gives us hope when man fails us.

This ranks up with my favorite of all time. I wrote a book in the late 90's about integrating the educational disciplines. Much too long to explain, but in the book (project) we had to gather poetry that spoke of humankind. "The Darkling Thrush" so blew me away that I had to include it. It is the masterpiece of man's existential nature put to rest by nature. How better to signify that than by the line you just quoted as the bird symbolizes man. Perfect poem is right.

I had my class do this poem in choral reading for the end of the year award ceremony. The guys did one verse, the girls another, and at the end, they all joined in one voice. It was amazing. Makes my hair stand up to think of it.