Describe the mood of the poem "The Darkling Thrush" and explain how Hardy uses imagery to create the mood.

(5)

I leant upon a coppice gate2
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems3 scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
2 gate leading to a thicket, or a small wood
3 twining stems

(10)
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse4 outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ5 and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry, 4 this poem was written on the last day of the century, December 31, 1900.
5 seed or bud

(15) And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

(20) 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.

(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.