Thomas Hardy's timely meditation on the turning of an era.

This month's classic poem is Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush," which Hardy dated "31 December 1900": the last evening of the 19^th century. More than a decade ago (June 1998), as the millennial year approached, I offeredSlate readers "The Darkling Thrush" as a hard-to-equal model for responses to the turn of a millennium.

Now, at what many hope is the start of a new era, and in time for the new year, here again is Hardy's vividly described little bird with its blend of comedy and pathos. The "blast-beruffled" thrush in its wintry landscape may represent Hardy's bow of his head toward John Keats and Keats' great "Ode to a Nightingale" of May 1819—when their century was much younger.

Expressively tentative or qualifying phrases like the repeated "seems," "I could think," and "I was unaware" enact Hardy's somewhat skeptical holding back from any declaration that the natural surroundings reflect his mood or the human calendar. The poet is alone, and he ends the first half of the poem with the word I: That pronoun suggests, to me, that the "fervorless" or haunted or corpselike quality of the landscape—like the bird's putative "hope" later—is something that the subjective observer at least half creates.

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 fervorless 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.

31 December 1900

…………................……—Thomas Hardy

Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Robert Pinsky read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.