In the following poem by Thomas Hardy, the speaker describes the singing of an aged thrush in the middle of a bleak winter landscape. Read the poem carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Hardy uses poetic elements and techniques to explore the speaker's complex response to the thrush and develop the meaning of the work as a whole.

In your response, you should do the following:

Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation.
Select and use evidence to support your line of reasoning.
Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.
The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
(5)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
(10)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,
(15)And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
(20)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.

(25)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
(30)His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.