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,
Previous Hardy wrote of a ‘death-lament, a compressed compound noun, that contrasts with the joyful 'full-hearted’. The ‘evensong’ is the first religious reference, a church service that praises God at the end of the day.
The Darkling Thrush