Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush"

I must say, for a better reason of finishing my posts for Dr. Glance, dissecting Hardy’s poems is quite fun and mentally rewarding, bringing good memories from the time I first read William Blake’s poetic works.  The poets do amaze me with their wordsmanship, style, and a deeper understanding that’s more than what meets the surface.  To be able to inquire the mind of such deep contemplations, it allows the reader to gain intuition and wisdom through their own realizations and inference.  Their works seem to spark the beginning of reason and logic that leads one to a natural conclusion created by the mind.  It is amazing that poetry can create universal knowledge that is only gained from thinking, rather than from reading.  Much fun is it that literature can give the human mind, that which is capable of understanding the hidden meanings and deeper thoughts of one another.

So in that respect, I must continue to indulge myself in another of Hardy’s fine work, “The Darkling Thrush.”

Published at exactly the turn of the century (December 31, 1900), Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush” was meant not only as a memorial for the past, but also as a celebration and birth of a new era full of change not only in technological ways, but also in literary culture and styles (what we know as the modernistic movement).  It is evident that in this poem, we find Hardy’s common themes of darkness filled with observations of nature’s natural aging, but also with the hint of human hopes and dreams of a better future.

The dark and “desolate” setting of this piece is illustrated by Hardy’s fine use of imagery.  “Frost was spectre-gray” and “Winter’s dregs made desolate the weakening eye of day” (1074).  The grey tones and residue buildup from a cold winter sets the dark mood that resembles the end of the fourth season as it is the end of the last century.  Hardy specifically chose the end of winter to represent this time of change as it is before the season of birth, spring.

The colors and tone of the setting is as if we are at a funeral for the passing era or at the deathbed of it as it slowly dies off with the “weakening eye of day.”  The “tangled bine-stems scored the sky like strings of broken lyres” gives us an impression that the old times have aged and it is now their time to rest as a broken harp needs to be laid down when it is over used.  Beautiful music can no longer be played.  The most difficult lines for me to understand were “And all mankind that haunted nigh had sought their household fires.”  What exactly did Hardy mean by this?  It may be that searching for “their household fires” was a symbolism of action to end the old era, with the burning of the old and broken stringed “lyres.”

The scenery is further dramatized as a graveyard when Hardy illustrates:

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
(1075)

The image is morbid, with a glimpse of the dying times as the old “Century’s corpse outleant.”  This image of a corpse leaning out from a coffin shows the presence of age and end of the old era.  As the clouds serve as the coffin’s lid (“His crypt the cloudy canopy”), the winds serve as the crying voice of his (“the old Century”) departure (“the wind his death-lament”).  Although the old times will die, they will still be mourned and remembered. (1075)

The next stanza describes a “blast-beruffled plume” of “aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small” singing the songs of unlimited “joy.”  The bird seems as “fervourless as [he, being the author],” and is a representative of man’s emotional state.  The bird is but another “spirit upon earth” that shares the same remorse as well as celebration of the old/new century’s death/birth.  This duality view can be identified in the bird’s “carolings” even though it ends up “fling[ing] his soul upon the growing gloom.”  Hardy gives the presence of happiness and sadness all in the same stanza to show the emotional state of the minds during this turning point in time.  Hardy was one of those authors that always look at both sides of a coin, but more judgment and emphasis was placed on the darker side of things.  We can see the empowerment of darkness over light in previously referenced lines. (1075)

Like his other works, this one holds true to his style as it portrays the glimmer of hope, light, and reason in a setting overtaken by darkness.  This is important to note since it implies the strength of his characters and of himself.  Even in the face of the darkest moments, he manages to find, or create light and hope, while keeping the possibility of a brighter future in his awareness:  “So little cause for carolings… was written on terrestrial things… that I could think there trembled through… some blessed Hope, whereof he knew, and I was unaware.”  Although the hope is small and little, it is strong for it can “tremble through” the darkness.  Even if the author himself is empty of light, the creature remains filled with this “blessed Hope” that only “[the bird itself] knew.”  Hardy acknowledges that there exists goodness in the world even though it is not in his presence or awareness. (1075)

Even though Hardy has a distaste for the old era, why is it that the celebration of a new century so dark and “desolate” at the same time?  Like many of the modernistic poets, Hardy was against the industrial movement and realizes it’s abomination to nature.  England is being changed for the sacrifice of the natural good, and this serves as the reason for the change in literature.  There must be change in the arts to show the corruptions of the land resulting from technological advancement and materialistic greed.  Even against this direction of change (this darkness), Hardy still has hope for England, and acknowledges the existence of a reform, with poetry and literary means as his tools.  The movement that was once ignited by Bernard Shaw has now picked up pace and Hardy has jumped on the moving train to alert the people of the dangers of the new Century.