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 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 fervourless as I.At once a voice arose among      The bleak twigs overheadIn 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 soundWas written on terrestrial things      Afar or nigh around,That I could think there trembled through      His happy good-night airSome blessed Hope, whereof he knew      And I was unaware.ENJOY MOREThe Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; the Wild Isle Podcast: Stories from Sri Lanka’s Nature; a range of complete Audio Books about Sri Lanka; as well as Poetry from The Jungle.  All these, along with eBooks, dictionaries, guides and companions can be found at www.theceylonpress.com, based at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy: www.flametreeestate.com.  The copyright of this podcast recording is David Swarbrick @The Ceylon Press 2025. POETRY FROM THE JUNGLE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE COPYRIGHT CREDIT: "The Darkling Thrush" by Thomas Hardy is in the public domain. It was first published on December 29, 1900, in The Graphic under the title "By the Century's Deathbed".

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