Thomas Hardy was a Victorian realist who had a critical view of society and especially rural society at the turn of the century. He feared that things were changing for the worst, and his viewpoint is on display in Darkling Thrush. This poem touches on the change in society that Hardy saw during the industrial revolution in Britain at the turn of the century. The poem features a narrator wondering about tin the darkness and looking for purpose. While it has a dark tone, the end of the poem gives hope to the reader. It’s nice to think that this was Hardy realizing that even though times may seem bleak, there is always hope for the future. Change is inevitable, and Hardy understands this fact. I believe that he also knows that depending on how one looks at change, it can be good or bad. The narrator begins with a negative view of his surroundings, and he does not become a full-fledged optimist, but he does take solace in the fact that he recognizes happiness when he sees it. Though Darkling Thrush starts off bleak, it ends in hope.


Darkling Thrush
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
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.

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 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.

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