Hardy's The Darkling Thrush-- a lesson for us in our own times.




Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush" is much on my mind these days. It was first published on December 29, 1900, but a handwritten note on an earlier copy referred to 1899. The world was teetering on the edge of a lot of changes: the new century, the rise of rampant capitalism in the wake of the burgeoning Industrial Age, and the widening disparity between the very rich and the working poor. Even rumblings of the unrest that would lead to the first World War were becoming apparent. Sounds familiar. Several paradigm shifts threatened stability both on the wider scale and on the personal. 

The poem is bleak, to be sure. The images call up a broken world, a black-and-white world, with a distinct chill in the air and in the heart and soul of the speaker. Such phrases as "The tangled bine-stems scored the sky/ Like strings of broken lyres" paint a picture that is bereft of hope. I have been feeling this way for a while -- a lot of people have. It's hard to find much in the news or in the challenges of daily living that can engender hope. It takes discipline and faith. 

But yet, by the end of the poem, Hardy offers up a glimmer of a not-so-dark future, or at least a promise of the possibility. He ends with  the "blast-beruffled" thrush singing with "joy illimited." The speaker, profoundly affected by the bird's song, ends with the realization that even if he didn't feel it yet, the bird sang with

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
      And I was unaware.

May we all find some Hope in the New Year. Surround yourself with those you love, and let's keep each other safe.

Blessings,

C

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