The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fire
Here, Hardy addresses two things. First, he continues his imagery of the desolate, unforgiving winter, covering the sky with tangling clouds. Then he ends the first stanza with the recognition of other humans who are familiar with the dreary landscape and the gray, merciless condition. However, their mystical manifestations have retired to the solace of their household fires, leaving Hardy an isolated onlooker.
The second stanza introduces the fact that this recollection is being told at the turning point of a century. A morbid image is portrayed, as he writes that “His crypt the cloudy canopy.” Hardy describes his situation as would be similar to being in a coffin, the sky being the lid. He continues to suggest his own, slow demise with pessimistic metaphors, such as, “The wind his death-lament.” The ending of the century is not simply an end of one and the beginning of another, for Hardy cannot see any hope for a new beginning. The turn of the century, for the speaker, signals the point in which time will stop.
Without relent, Hardy concludes his description of the condition in which he exists in by saying,
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I
Two things are particularly interesting about the imagery Hardy uses in the finale of the second octave. First, Hardy had particular reason for using the words, “ancient pulse of germ and birth.” When reading the words pulse and birth, the image of the pulse of a heart comes to mind, symbolizing the rhythm of life. However, pulse also has an agricultural connotation, as does the word germ. Pulse and germ, or germination, in terms of agriculture, refers to cycles of pods, which refers to resurgence, renewal, and new life. Hardy then states that this ‘renewal of life’ was shrunken hard and dry, indicating its death. This coincides perfectly with Hardy’s idea that the turn of the century signals the point in which time will stop, and that no ‘renewal of life’ is foreseeable.
The second interesting thing about the second octave was the wording in which it ended. Hardy does not speak of mankind, like in the first octave, but speaks of “spirits”, and how they are “fervourless”. “Fervourless” is more then just a lack of passion or expression, but literally means without warmth, such as the bodies of the deceased.
Hardy alters the mood of the poem in the third octave, when he hears the first sign of a vigorous, energetic creature in The Darkling Thrush.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
A darkling thrush is normally a very small, colorful bird, which is more often heard than seen. Hardy’s describes his thrush in similar fashion as he described everything else bleak in the world, as “aged, frail, and gaunt.” However, despite the “growing gloom” of the physical world, the thrush had chosen to “fling his soul.” Here, Hardy is carefully wording the image of a powerful source of splendor existing in a world of unsightliness. A small, fragile thrush had the courage to sing optimistically in spite of the tomblike desolation during the funeral of the eighteenth century.
The forth and final octave of the poem illustrates a conflict in the mental state of Hardy. Although the song of the thrush has not convinced him that the dismal condition of the world is imaginary, it has caused him to “think.” The winter earth still leaves “little cause for carolings”, and Hardy still remains on the deathbed of an old century. Furthermore, the fact that the “blessed Hope” is a positive awareness the bird has and of which he is unaware, instills a final sense of despair upon the conclusion of the poem.
Immersing “The Darkling Thrush” in a lifeless setting,
absent of all but one moment of optimistic existence,
Thomas Hardy intertwines a combination of figurative
language, pessimistic metaphors, and depressing similes
into his work, providing a foundation of depressing and
miserable emotions for his very existence. Even when Hardy
captures a glimpse of exuberance from an aged, frail, and
gaunt thrush, he asserts that his personal difficulties
expel him from the possibilities of knowing hope. As all
indications of hope diminished with “the weakening eye of
the day”, Thomas Hardy employed the poetic mechanism of
imagery to illustrate a desperate and unpromising
centennial
