For New Year’s eve in my Anthology from Canterbury Press, Waiting on the Word, I have chosen to read Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘The Darkling Thrush’, which was written on New Year’s Eve at the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Though it begins with Hardy’s characteristically bleak forboding, suddenly the poet in him discerns and allows another note of hope.
You can hear me read this poem by clicking on the title or the play button. The image above was created by Linda Richardson. She writes:
I first heard this poem at school and thought Hardy a very depressing poet. I didn’t have the tenacity to stay with the poem through the bleakness until the hope. When we are not mature we only want laughter and fun and a perpetual summer time. There is no virtue in winter and we avoid pain at all costs. The consequence of this is, not only are we likely to be selfish, but we lack the contrasts that give life depth and meaning. The image I made reflects this theme of contrast.
I made a black and white photo transfer of a small bird in a tangle of twigs and painted the canvas with cold blues and violets. I enhanced the roughness of the surface by applying thread in an acrylic medium to the surface of the painting. Out of the grey coldness of the painting comes the idea of pure and beautiful bird song. If we try to make earth our heaven we will be terribly disappointed, but here, amid the stark grey of winter, comes a song of hope. Annie Dillard, the American writer and poet says, “You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary.”
You can find the words, and a short reflective essay on this poem in Waiting on the Word, which is now also available on Kindle
The Darkling Thrush Thomas Hardy
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.
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.
I love this poem and hope to see the poet when I set sail.
Indeed
Dear Malcolm, This has been a very different Advent and Christmas season for me. The journey has been filled with Linda Richardson’s soul-filled art, and poetry the likes of which I did not learn in school. This poem, read a-loud against the stark of winter in the painting (for I listened to you read whilst I gazed on Linda’s haunting work,) touched notes in me that were long unsung. I too, have heard mockingbird song on days when no other bird could be heard to mock, and wondered just what that bird knew that I did not. Perhaps he was reminding the others of just what their song was and what it meant not to hear it. Perhaps he was singing every song he knew to praise the Lord. Thank you, once more for sharing all that you do.
Linda
Thanks it’s so good to have such a heartfelt and lyrical response to this post!