THE DARKLING THRUSH

BY THOMAS HARDY
Rhyme Scheme: abcbdede

1840 - 1928

The Poet
-

the granddaddy of the twentieth century

a forerunner of all that Modernism would bring to the world
a profound and poetic genius, a gentle and humane soul
one of the first authors to tackle the problems of the "modern" world: isolation,
despair, and hopelessness
the son of a stonemason, born in Dorset, England, on June 2, 1840
trained as an architect and worked in London and Dorset for ten years
was highly critical of Victorian era
Hardy focused more on a declining rural society.
He rejected the Victorian belief in a benevolent God

The Poem
-

A little slice of Modernist philosophy

depicts Hardy's philosophy of life
offers an existentially bleak outlook
written at a pivotal moment in time, in 1899 right at the turn of the century
a combination of backward-looking and forward-looking
His most lyrical poem, musical in execution, metaphor, theme and title
He uses poetic devices such as symbolism and imagery throughout the poem
like his fiction, his poetry is characterized by a pervasive fatalism
explores a fatalist(pessimist) outlook against the dark, rugged landscape of his
native Dorset
his poetry reads as a sardonic lament on the bleakness of the human condition
his poems illuminate the contradictions between the vulnerable, doom struck
man and the serene inhabitant of the natural world
Although "The Darkling Thrush" appears to be about the ending of the world, it's
actually a celebration of new birth and new beginnings
By ending "The Darkling Thrush" with the promise of Hope, Hardy allows possibility
to emerge out of a long and bitter struggle against darkness
Hardy presents two important symbols which embody the overall tone of the
poem. The thrush symbolizes hope.
The second symbol is the lyre. The broken strings create a terrible sound which
echoes the poets negative outlook on the upcoming century
the thrush is introduced and suddenly, the lyres strings are whole again
Hardy is able to symbolize that the upcoming century is indeed hopeful

By concluding "The Darkling Thrush" with a bird's song, Hardy emphasizes the
ways that happiness remains out of the scope of human comprehension
His use of the two symbols, the thrush and the lyre, help connect the bleak tone in
the first two stanzas with the possible acceptance of hope in the final two stanzas

The Title
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"darkling" used to mean "a creature of darkness."

The poet wants to indicate that the bird is bringing joy to a dark land
The bird thrush has come to dispel darkness from life as a harbinger of hope
for a brighter future

Stanza 1
Lines: 1- 4
I leant upon a coppice gate - Alliteration
When Frost was spectre-gray, Personification
And Winter's dregs made desolate - Metaphor
The weakening eye of day. Personification

coppice = a big area of scrub brush, a gate leading

to a small wood or thicket
Spectre-gray = hoary, ghost like
dregs = last remains
Winter = A Metaphor for death
Symbolism & Imagery throughout the poem

The End may be the Beginning: [Symbolism & Imagery]

The first two stanzas conveys the gloom and hopeless desolation that colour the works of his maturity
in varying shades of gray. The poem is written at the end of the nineteenth century. It's the end of the
day, year or century. The countryside is frozen into an icy, unwelcoming landscape. The poet stares out into
the gloom, he's reminded that everything around him is on the fast track to death and decay. (fatalist,
pessimistic attitude). Latent in these metaphors, however, is the sense that re-growth just might be possible.
Winter turns into spring. The nineteenth century turns into the twentieth.
Paraphrase:

I leant upon a coppice gate Alliteration

The poet is leaning up against a gate leading to a big patch of brush and brambles. The coppice gate leads
not to a garden, not to a stand of stately trees, but to leafless, twining brambles.

When Frost was spectre-gray, Personification

Frost and Winter attain human-like characteristics.

And Winter's dregs made desolate - Metaphor

The day was already weakening before Winter's dregs started making things even worse. A pall of gloom
seems to have descended. The word dregs captures the ugly, sedimentary nature of the bottom of the
barrel, the end of day, year and century, and alliteratively emphasizes the deadness of "desolate day. It is
gray and grimy, desolate, barren bleak dreary.

The weakening eye of day. Personification

The diminishing light of the fading sun (sun personified as the eye of day)

Lines : 5-8
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Imagery/ Metaphor
Like strings of broken lyres, - Simile
And all mankind that haunted nigh - Alliteration
Had sought their household fires.

Lyre = "classical allusion." - a classical harplike instrument

Bine- stems =vines
Symbolism & Imagery throughout the poem

Death of Classics: (Related to ancient Greece and Rome)

All of the classical allusions in this poem are coupled with images of death and decay. The instruments so
often associated with angels have been destroyed and their strings hopelessly snarled. As he gazes into the
patch of tangled brushes, he can only seedeath and destruction.
Paraphrase:

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Imagery/ Metaphor

Like strings of broken lyres, - Simile

The vines become "like" a broken stringed instrument. "The tangled bine-stems scored the sky/ Like strings
of broken lyres means it is an unruly and stark world that is out of tune. The phrase metaphorically
communicates complexity, a tangle that would be hard to negotiate and get oneself through and past. The
powerful verb scored means mark, incise, or cut, these stems that cut across and into the sky
metamorphose instantly into strings of broken lyres
.

And all mankind that haunted nigh - Alliteration

Had sought their household fires.
All humanity except for the speaker have fled the chill of weak sun and winter frost for the warmth of
household fires

Stanza: 2
Lines: 9-12

Crypt = tomb
Nature laments the death of modern age, modernization. 19th
Centurys corpse =to depict the nineteenth century as dying
Symbolism & Imagery throughout the poem

The land's sharp features seemed to be - Metaphor

The Century's corpse outleant,- Personification
His crypt the cloudy canopy, - Alliteration
The wind his death-lament.- Personification
The imagery in the second stanza is somber. A grotesque imagery of death pervades the entire second
stanza: the landscape itself is the Centurys corpse leaning out of its coffin. The land becomes a map of
everything that's happened over the course of the century. All of nature seems to conspire to mourn the
passing of the century. The sense that the outer world mimics or manifests your own emotions is a very
Romantic notion.
Paraphrase:

The land's sharp features seemed to be- Metaphor

The Century's corpse outleant,- Personification

In the gray scenery around, the narrator, barely visible, sees only the stasis of deepest
winter. That resonating pair of words "leant" and "outleant" impresses on the eye
images of disablement, the laying-out of the dead, and leanness. The moribund life is more
assertive when we hear of the "Century's corpse" leaning out.

His crypt the cloudy canopy, - Alliteration

The wind his death-lament.- Personification
The hard 'C' sounds in: "corpse", "crypt", "cloudy canopy" evoke, the tread of a funeral march, the dislodged
clods of earth, the entombment of the personified century. The wind moans a "death-lament."

Lines: 13-16
The ancient pulse of germ and birth- Metaphor
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth - synecdoche
Seemed fervourless as I.

Ancient pulse = the force of germination and

procreation
Fervourless = without any zest
Symbolism & Imagery throughout the poem

The conventional promise of springtime and fertility are absent. There is reference to the living, breathing
natural world drying up. He seems to obsess over the barren British countryside ".
Paraphrase:

The ancient pulse of germ and birth - Metaphor

Was shrunken hard and dry

"The ancient pulse of germ and birth was shrunken hard and dry. The force of germination and
procreation, birth and regeneration is no longer possible as conditions are not conducive to growth and
prosperity.

And every spirit upon earth -synecdoche

Seemed fervourless as I.
Then again, maybe the world is full of zombie-like humans and gray weather. He seems to obsess over the
barren British countryside ". Things go from dull and depressing to outright dismal. No life seems to stir.
At the nadir of hopelessness, everything is bleak, freezing, desolate, dried-up, and fervourless, if not actually
dead. fervourless, suggests that every other spirit on earth shares his depleted and desiccated state .

Stanza : 3
Lines: 14 - 21
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;

Evensong = evening song

Illimited = unlimited
Symbolism & Imagery throughout the poem

Paraphrase:
The third stanza marks a significant shift in the poem. All of a sudden, out of all that silence and death
and never-ending grayness, the poet hears something. And not just any sound this is an all-out love
song. It's full and beautiful and chock-full of happiness. From those "bleak" bine stems that score,
scratch, and abrade the sullen sky comes the incongruous - the joyous song of a thrush.

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

In blast-beruffled plume, - Alliteration
Had chosen thus to fling his soul - Metaphor
Upon the growing gloom. Alliteration
The thrush is "aged, frail, gaunt. . ." and its feathers are "blast-beruffled" by the winter wind. It is stuck in the
middle of a nasty storm. The best thing that the speaker can say about the bird is that it somehow
manages to exist in all of that feather-ruffling wind. As frail and puny as this bird is, it's managed to do
what our speaker has been too scared to do: to forget about the odds and just sing. This bird shares
qualities with the world-weary speaker, the leaden sky, the scratchy leafless brambles. Not only is that
pervasive gloom still present. It is even growing. Sure, the chances are that the bird won't be able to do
anything to make the "growing gloom" one ounce lighter. But it's willing to try.

Stanza : 4
So little cause for carolings

Of such ecstatic sound- Alliteration

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 - Personification
And I was unaware.

Paraphrase:
The poet can't figure out why in the world anything let alone a bird would waste its last breath in a song
that no one will hear. Our feathered friend doesn't give him any answers. The poet doesn't even try to figure
it out. He's content to know that something out there sees a reason to exist and to be joyful even if he can't
comprehend the reasons himself. He's able to appreciate happiness when he sees it. He's not sure that the
bird is singing a happy song. He just thinks that he could think the bird is happy.
Hardy's poem ushers in the century with the last two lines. The song of the thrush seems to revive Hardys
spirit. He feels joy at its music. Despite his sorrow and despair, Hardy creates a musical poem through rhyme
and repetition.
This poem is both a lament for the death of music and a celebration of its rebirth.

Summary
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The Darkling Thrush opens with a picture of the poet looking at sunset as night falls. It is dusk on
the last day of the nineteenth century.

When Hardy speaks the poem he is leaning on a wooden gate looking at the darkening countryside.

At the same time, frost takes over the land like a grey ghost.

Hardy compares the shadows of sunset to the last drops or dregs of a drink.

He describes a desolate scene. Though it is sad, he is attracted to the sorrowful mood of the place.

Hardy compares the sun to an eye that is losing power at sunset. This image suggests that sunlight
is like a god. [ symbolic of the century coming to an end]

As Hardy looks across the countryside, the dark outlines of trees and sticks seem to stand out. They
contrast to the brighter sky in the west.

These upstanding stems of trees remind him of the strings of broken harps.[lyre]

At the end of the first stanza it is clear Hardy is alone. Hardy shows he is alone by claiming that the
people who had been out and about before sunset have all gone home to the comfort of their open
house fires. The poet therefore feels alone.

In the second stanza, Hardy imagines that the dark outline of hills and rocks form the shape of a
giant corpse laid out for burial. The cloudy sky forms the roof or canopy of the tomb or crypt

Because it is the last day of the year and century, Hardy makes a connection between the shape of
the landscape and a corpse at a wake. He has a vivid mind.

The wind blowing through the harp-like stems and trees makes funeral music, a bit like a creepy harp
at a funeral service.

The fact that nothing is growing on earth due to winter makes the land seem dead.

All creatures on the earth seem to be lifeless or fervourless. The spirit of life seems to have died.

Suddenly, in the third stanza, at this gloomy moment a frail old thrush begins to sing its sweet song.

The song of the bird, perched in the twigs, seems infinitely joyful or ecstatic.

Hardy is struck that the nearby thrush looks old and frail. Its feathers are ruffled by the strengthening
evening wind. Yet it has joy in its heart.

The poet imagines that the bird through its song is throwing its soul out to the spreading darkness.

In the last stanza, Hardy claims the surrounding dark land provides little reason for this outburst of
joyful singing.

It reminds him of a carol. The song begins to sweeten his gloomy mood.

Hardy suddenly realises the song of the thrush in the falling darkness represents hope.

The poet is in a pleasantly sad mood as he leans alone on the gate watching the century fade into
darkness. But he clings on to the sad mood. He is addicted to it. The hopeful song of the bird adds a
new mood. Hardy becomes aware for the first time that evening of a new hope of things to come.

He realises that there is a reason to hope, without knowing what that reason is. It is clear that the
thrush alone senses this hope and expresses it.

This is probably natures way of reminding him that spring always follows winter. Or it may be a
spiritual message from nature. It is certainly uplifting.

Background: 19th Century: Industrial Revolution

Hardy's writing at the end of the Industrial Revolution, which turned the nineteenth century onto its
head. Britain transformed almost overnight: what was once a mainly agrarian nation (that's farmers, by
the way) became industrial. People migrated to cities, which soon became packed with smog and
soot.

Though, the Industrial Revolution changed how work was done. Men and women used to be in
charge of their own lives. Sure, they were poor. Maybe they even worked as peasants for rich
landowners. But they were in touch with the land and they got to control their own schedules.

Once people started working in factories, however, all that changed. They had to work 12 or 14-hour
a day jobs doing the same mind-numbing tasks over and over and over. They never saw the sun. In fact,
they turned pale asghosts.

So if people are walking around like ghosts, it might just be because industry had turned them into
automatons.

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