Named source · 1901

The Darkling Thrush — Thomas Hardy Quotes by Thomas Hardy: Context & Meanings

2 quotations linked to The Darkling Thrush — Thomas Hardy by or associated with Thomas Hardy, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

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Turn-of-the-century poem collected in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901)

Topics and ideas

Winter desolation, an aged thrush, song, uncertainty, hope, gloom and a speaker who cannot identify the source of the bird’s apparent joy.

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2 quotations with source context and meaning

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“I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-gray, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day.”

Thomas Hardy

Meaning & context

The opening converts a winter landscape into an image of exhaustion and ending, establishing the bleak scene against which the later thrush song becomes striking.

Source details

“The Darkling Thrush,” collected in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), Project Gutenberg #3168. The poem first appeared at the turn of the century; this collection uses the represented collection as source identity.

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“An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.”

Thomas Hardy

Meaning & context

A physically frail bird sings into a bleak winter scene, creating a contrast in which hope appears through action even though the speaker does not understand its source.

Source details

“The Darkling Thrush,” Poems of the Past and the Present; Project Gutenberg #3168. The poem's final hope remains uncertain to the speaker rather than becoming a guarantee of optimism.

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Turn-of-the-century poem collected in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901)

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