The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy

By King Meera -
Hardy’s work – Naturalism, Wessex (countryside), pre-industrial England, nostalgia
Role of destiny in everything
Society of consumption, consumerism
The industrialized were brought back to their human nature
“Had chosen thus to fling his soul (<3)
Upon the growing gloom”

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.
dusk
The tangled pine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
All have returned home to warmth and love, but speaker is alone, leaning on a coppice-gate

The land's sharp features seemed to be
Rigor mortis
The Century's corpse outleant,
Century – Victorian Era
Death is the starkest contrast to life
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
Crypt – enclosure, pit
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.
·        Landscape seems numb, inhuman – a Century that has lost its breath and is in a lull
·        People have become cold, static, no longer create or germinate – all mechanical
·        No one bothered with being human anymore

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
Bleak twigs contrasted with limitless joy
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.
Does he know this century is inept? Numb?
Thrush singing because he wants to
Landscape does not give cues for celebration

No answers to the question – where is his music coming from

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