Page 110 - Cuối Đời Nhìn Lại Số 18 - Xuân Nhâm Dần (2022)

I. The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate

When Frost was specter-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of the 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,

100 Cuối Đời Nhìn Lại