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Quote#Nature

I leant upon a coppice gate

Quote byThomas Hardy · 1840–1928

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), "The Darkling Thrush", ll. 1-8 (29 December 1900).

English (original)

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.

— Thomas Hardy

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