The Darkling Thrush
Thomas Hardy
1840 to 1928
Drag the words to the correct places to complete the poem. To reset the game, click on the "Reset Game" button located below the poem. This will clear all the words you've placed in the blanks, returning them to the word bank and resetting the poem to its original state with empty blanks.
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 ______ lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought ______ household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
______ Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The ______ his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
______ shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
______ fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
______ 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 ______ gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic ______
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
______ I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night ______
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.