Why am I writing this analysis right now? I could be sleeping. Its a miserable day and I don't really feel like doing much in any case. Why do anything at all? Why should I smile and pretend its alright when its really not?
Poets are not as blunt as I am. They like to ask questions in massive stanzas rather then in short sentences (Just look at The Tyger an an example). Thomas Hardy asks a very serious question in A Darkling Thrush, which I have already explored. In this gray, miserable shell of a world, why bother? Why does the sun even care to remain in that pale sky? Why do birds sing? Well lets get to it and find out, shall we?
Hardy is a fairly contemporary poet (he lived from 1840 to 1928). An Englishman, his works deal with English rural life and its decline during his life. He is a realist in his writing style- you will find fanciful metaphors and wordplay, but he rarely weaves imagery that couldn't occur in reality.
It should be remembered that as someone who lived in the country, Hardy's way of life was declining. Industrialization and poverty had emptied and soiled the line. It could even be said that his inspirations were similar to Charles Dickens's.
And in keeping with that theme, the first two stanza finds Hardy painting a dismal picture of his home
"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."
We understand some elements of the structure immediately. Alliteration is used to create a sense of flow
to the work very frequently, while metaphors are used to convey the melancholy desolation of the
narrators surroundings. The rhyme scheme is in standard alternating style. Hardy also seems to be very
selective in the arrangement of his sentences and his use of symmetry. See the lines "was shrunken hard
and dry" and "germ and birth", where Hardy seems to be aligning use of the word "and" to create a
sense of order and organization within the work.
We see grey English countryside, where the remnants of a harsh winter has rendered the eye of day (the
sun) to the status of a dim candle. Barely any blue sky- which Hardy compares to the strings of broken
lyre- can even find its way through the clouds. The houses and structures- the corpses of the century-
are deserted, their denizens having long retreated to the cities, leaving the rural buildings to ruin. Hardy
states it himself in the second stanza- the rural countryside, and the lives of those who live there, is
rotting away slowly. The ancient pulse of germ and birth- the earth itself- is hard, dry, and frozen.
And the narrator, Hardy, finds himself looking upon this gloomy landscape. Unlike the other
inhabitants of the land, he has ventured out into the cold, demonstrating that in contrast to them, Hardy
seeks an answer, a reason, to the frost and gloom around him. And he gets it- not everything in the cold
countryside has perished.
"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 plumed
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom."
We see a sudden and drastic transformation of the tone. The first two stanzas ooze melancholy sorrow,
with their words of a broken sky and a frozen world. But upon the entry of this thrush, this elderly bird
singing its song, the tone becomes lighter and softer. Words like "twigs", "joy", and "plumed" lighten
the once dark tone.
"So little cause for carolling
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."
This transformation of tone becomes even more pronounced in the final stanza. Words like "carolling",
"ecstatic", and "blessed" take what was once a very sad poem and make it pleasant, take a winter's
dismal afternoon and turn it into a warm summers eve. And then Hardy gets to the question which was
mentioned at the very beginning of this analysis.
Why?
The narrator of this poem feels like life it not even worth living. The earth around him is grey
and dead, and even his fellow countrymen have shut themselves inside their homes in defeat. But this
bird, this trash is not only content with its surroundings, but it finds the happiness to produce song. The
narrator marvels at the powers of the trash to command happiness where he sees none, and concludes
that the trash is privy to some secret truth that he is not aware of. But what is the poem about? Is it a
metaphor for childhood, and innocence held by children despite the worst of circumstances? Is it a tale
of how the faintest smile glows brightest in the dark? Perhaps a marvel on the powers of nature? Or
maybe its just what it seems to be; a story of how happiness can be found by those who search for it.
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