"The Darkling Thrush" by Thomas Hardy

 

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 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.

• • 
    

"‘Throwing a Tree’, New Forest" by Thomas Hardy

 

I 

The two executioners stalk along over the knolls, 

Bearing two axes with heavy heads shining and wide, 

And a long limp two-handled saw toothed for cutting great boles, limp – flexible; boles - trunks 

And so they approach the proud tree that bears the death-mark on its side. * 

II 

Jackets doffed they swing axes and chop away just above ground, doffed – taken off 

And the chips fly about and lie white on the moss and fallen leaves; chips – small pieces of 

Till a broad deep gash in the bark is hewn all the way round, wood; gash – wound; hewn - cut 

And one of them tries to hook upward a rope, which at last he achieves. 

III 

The saw then begins, till the top of the tall giant shivers: 

The shivers are seen to grow greater with each cut than before: 

They edge out the saw, tug the rope; but the tree only quivers, 

And kneeling and sawing again, they step back to try pulling once more. 

IV 

Then, lastly, the living mast sways, further sways: with a shout mast – long upright pole 

Job and Ike rush aside. Reached the end of its long staying powers 

The tree crashes downward: it shakes all its neighbours throughout, 

And two hundred years' steady growth has been ended in less than two hours. 

* death-mark – a chalked or painted mark to show it is to be felled. To throw a tree is to fell a tree, bring it to the ground.