Many know Thomas Hardy, a Victorian realist, for his novels like Jude the Obscure and Far From the Madding Crowd. However, Hardy regarded himself primarily as a poet. The Darkling Thrush is a stirring account of the inspiration he derived from nature; his thrush, daring to sing amid the cold, dark of winter. Simply Brilliant!
THE DARKLING THRUSH By Thomas Hardy
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 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 trembling though
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, wherof he knew
And I was unaware.
Old Wethersfield Books 
Having been to Dorset in the winter, I can say it takes a lot of hope to be singing there and then! Beautiful, heartfelt poetry.