"The Darkling Thrush" is a poem by

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

. Originally titled "By the Century's Deathbed", it was first published on 29 December 1900 in ''

The Graphic ''The Graphic'' was a British weekly illustrated newspaper, first published on 4 December 1869 by William Luson Thomas's company Illustrated Newspapers Ltd. Thomas's brother Lewis Samuel Thomas was a co-founder. The premature death of the latt ...

.'' The poem was later published in ''

London Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' on 1 January, 1901. A deleted '1899' on the poem's manuscript suggests that it may have been written in that year. It was later included in a collection entitled '' Poems of the Past and the Present'' (1901).

Summary

The first two

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...

s describe a bleak winter landscape at dusk, and the feeling of lifelessness that it produces. In stanza three, the melancholy atmosphere is transformed when "an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small" suddenly launches into "a full-hearted evensong of joy illimited." The final stanza muses that since there was no apparent cause for such an ecstatic outburst, the bird's singing must have been inspired by "some blessed Hope, whereof he knew and I was unaware." The use of the word "darkling" recalls the same word in

Matthew Arnold Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, lite ...

Dover Beach "Dover Beach" is a lyric poem by the English poet Matthew Arnold. It was first published in 1867 in the collection ''New Poems''; however, surviving notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849. The most likely date is 1851.Al ...

(1867), a poem about loss of faith.Stokes, Richard. ''The Penguin Book of English Song'' (2016), p 597.

References

External links

The Darkling Thrush
at

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1900 poems Poetry by Thomas Hardy Works originally published in The Times {{UK-poem-stub