The Darkling Thrush

Thomas Hardy

1840 to 1928

Poem Image
Track 1

Type into the gaps 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, and resetting the poem to its original state with empty blanks. If you prefer to drag and drop words, click the Drag & Drop button below. You can also print out the poem for use in the classroom.

Every 10th word

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.