For the New Year: The Darkling Thrush

Thomas Hardy (d. 1928) was a gloomy Victorian. That's why his poem, "The Darkling Thrush," is such a surprise. He wrote it on the last day of the year in 1900, about hope (or Hope, capitalized). Hardy was no Christian, or at least no evangelical: he "Never Expected Much" he wrote on his 86th birthday ("just neutral-tinted haps and such"). He preferred to see his life under "Crass Casualty" ("Hap") instead of the sovereign providence of a caring God. And he committed to "enjoy the earth no less/ Because the all-enacting Might/ That fashioned forth its loveliness/ Had other aims than my delight" ("Let Me Enjoy").

And yet Hardy glimpsed Hope in the gloom. Here's to the unexpected testimony of birds--and other creatures of our God and King:

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 fervorless 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.

31 December 1900