The Darkling Thrush BY THOMAS HARDY I
leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, 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 fervourless 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. Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in Higher
Bockhampton, Dorset, to a working-class family. Though his intellectual
brilliance was recognized early, a university education was out of
reach, and he trained as an architect, only later dedicating himself
full-time to writing. He wrote novels, plays and poetry. Almost all of
his work was set in and around his beloved Dorset. In some ways, Hardy
was a bridge between the Victorian and modern periods. His work can be
quite Victorian in its construction, but it is modern in its theme—he is
famous for his fatalism, his use of irony, his critique of social
inequities, and his horror of war. His work was admired by such moderns
as Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, who otherwise had little use for
Victorians. Hardy’s last novel Jude the Obscure appeared in
1895, and it is said that the harsh reviews of that work contributed to
Hardy’s decision to abandon novel-writing and focus on poetry.
The poem Scott read, “The Darkling Thrush,” was originally entitled “By
the Century’s Deathbed”—it was written in 1899, as the 19th century was
ending. As we mark the end of 2021—a difficult year in so many ways—this
seems like the perfect poem to reflect on. The word “darkling”
is a word found only in poetry. It means “growing dark.” All the imagery
contributes to a sense of gloom and desolation. It is cold, but not
beautiful: “Frost was spectre-grey,” and all around the poet are the
desolate “dregs” of winter. Above him, the bare branches seem “like
strings of broken lyres”—if there was once music in this world, there is
music no more. The bleak scene reflects the bleakness of the
broader world. The “sharp features” of the landscape seem like “the
Century’s corpse”—the dead body of the century that is ending. The
clouds are the crypt, the wind is the “death-lament.” The hard, dry, and
lifeless ground also reflects the poet’s his inner state: “every spirit
upon earth / Seemed fervourless as I.” In early drafts of the poem,
Hardy struggled to find the right word for this line. In one version, he
wrote “morrowless”—without a future. But Hardy landed on “fervourless,”
a word which brings a religious sensibility into the poem. Just
at this low ebb, when the world, both without and within, seems drained
of life and energy, something happens. A thrush begins to sing. In many
ways, the thrush shares the influence of the bleak landscape: he is no
bright-eyed young bird, but “an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, /
In blast-beruffled plume.” And yet, the thrush sings, “in a full-hearted
evensong / Of joy illimited.” “Evensong,” of course, means more than
just a song at evening. It’s one name for the Church’s liturgy of
evening prayer. The old thrush doesn’t just sing, he carols joyfully; he
“fling[s] his soul / Upon the growing gloom.” The poet is
astonished, because there is nothing in view, far or near, that suggests
a cause for this ecstatic singing. The cause, then, must be not in what
is seen, but in what is unseen. The poem ends with doubt—a wholesome
doubt. Perhaps there is something beyond the gloom, cold, and darkness
of the world. Perhaps there is “some blessed Hope, whereof he knew / And
I was unaware.” As the nineteenth century ended, Hardy found it
difficult to look forward in hope to what the new century would bring.
As we start this new year, 2022, I think many of us are filled with that
same trepidation. What will happen with the pandemic? Will our family
and friends stay safe? Will we be able to see our family and friends?
Will our nation and our world know times of peace and stability, or will
it be another year of violence, bigotry, nativism, and reckless
disregard for the poor and for the planet? We can’t know the answers to
any of those questions, of course. But we can, like Hardy’s old thrush,
sing the “full-hearted evensong / Of joy illimited,” the song of faith
in our blessed Hope—Jesus, the love and mercy of a loving and merciful
God.
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