Source - Unsplash
Introduction
Poem’s Name - The Darkling Thrush
Author’s Name - Thomas Hardy
First Published in - The Graphic
Later Published in - Poems of the Past and Present
Genre - Ballad (Poetry)
Language - English
The Poem
The Poem is a lyrical ballad written in alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter having a regular pattern of enjambment. The poem incorporates Hardy's feelings about the future and his attitude towards nature.
It talks about a winter landscape that the speaker describes in detail as a desolate world submerged in a sorrowful decaying condition. The poet also describes it as an extended metaphor on a symbolic level due to its bleakness and decayed reflection of the state of Western culture.
The poem was originally titled ‘By the Century’s Deathbed’ and was later included in a collection entitled ‘Poems of the Past and Present’ by Thomas Hardy. The poet talks about the bleak landscape in the winter season, however, the melancholic tone of the poet transforms into a bright, optimistic tone on hearing an aged thrush sing.
About the Author
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| Source - Poetry Out Loud |
Thomas Hardy is one of the most renowned poets and novelists in English literary history. Hardy wrote fourteen novels, three volumes of short stories, and several poems between the years 1871 and 1897.
Though frequently described as gloomy and bitter, Hardy’s poems pay attention to the transcendent possibilities of sound, line, and breath—the musical aspects of language.
Hardy’s poems include a wide variety of poetic forms such as lyrics, ballads, satire, dramatic monologues, dialogue and drama. Most of his poems deal with themes of disappointment in love and life. Only the best of them present themes that include carefully controlled feelings.
Irony has been the important element of most of his poems while few others contain a melancholy polemic reflecting his firm stance against cruelty.
About the Book - Poems of the Past and the Present
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| Source - Amazon |
‘The Darkling Thrush’ was added in this book which is the second collection of poems by Thomas Hardy published in 1901. It includes a wide range of collections containing some of Hardy’s most powerful and lasting poetic collections.
Within this book you will find Hardy’s top rank lyric poems worked on magnificently that are worth reading and may also provide some understanding about the psychology of the author that is portrayed beautifully in this fictional world containing issues and perceptions of reality.
The Opening Line and Plot
“I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.”
The poem begins by introducing the setting of winter season and the moment when the poet looks at a leaning gate in the countryside covered in ‘Frost’. The day is dreary as it is the end of winter where the sun was setting in the grey sky, everything was pale.
“The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.”
The speaker then begins to think metaphorically while looking at the harsh features of the land as visual representations of the ‘19th Century’s corpse’, gruesomely leaning out of its coffin. He thinks perhaps the grimness of the century is the grimness of the passing time and hopelessness of an unforgiving and indifferent nature.
“That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.”
Towards the end of the poem we are told by the speaker that the blissful singing of an aged thrush could probably carry some secret and holy hope, something that he wasn’t aware of and that is hopefully positive.
The Thrush
Source - Buckley School
“An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.”
The thrush has been described by the speaker as an aged, old, feeble, clean and small bird who sings joyfully irrespective of the setting. To the speaker its appearance does not arouse any hope of the oppressive and growing darkness. Its singing is what gives the speaker a ‘Hope’ about something that only the bird is aware of.
The thrush’s singing has been described as one that puts its soul into singing a happy tune. It stands as a strong symbol to overcome the melancholy that the atmosphere brings to the readers.
Some Important Poetic Aspects
Hardy in ‘The Darkling Thrush’ makes use of many metaphorical aspects and poetic devices to define and personify certain elements throughout the poem.
They include:
1. Simile - Used to define the dead century with ‘broken Iyres’ suggesting the Western culture and its failure in some way.
2. Metaphors - To describe the landscape as embodying the death of the death of the century and the culture. Although the speaker does not specify the reasons for the failure of culture he provides some clues with reference to the coppice gate and bine-stems, implying that people have acted as poor caretakers of the culture.
3. Personification - Frost, Century and Hope are personified in the poem using capital ‘F’, ‘C’, and ‘H’ so that they become the principal actors beyond the realm of humanity.
Frost and Century here are given the human characteristic of end of life alluding to death that is slowly descending upon the forest. In the same way, Hope is personified as a characteristic that only the thrush was possibly aware of.
The poem also talks about various themes such as despair and isolation, hope and renewal, nature and decline of human civilization. Lastly, it also suggests that heaven has become intangible and inaccessible, temporarily wavering as the song of a thrush.
The Bottom Line
Hardy’s magnificent incorporation of symbolism, irony and imagery provide a wonderful rhyme and reading to his poems. His writings have therefore remained as one of the most popular and anthologized lyrics.
Being not much of a poetic reader and lover, to me, his poetic collections still stand the best in the realm of fiction and anthology.
My rating for the poem - 4 on 5
You can read the poem here - The Darkling Thrush
Written By - Umme-Aiman
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