The Song of the Thrush

125 years ago, Thomas Hardy published a poem called “The Darkling Thrush.” I don’t often read poetry and am by no means a connoisseur, but when I first read this poem, it captured my attention, although I wasn’t sure why. I reread it a few more times, trying to understand the words and why they felt so pertinent. Reading it today, as this year comes to a close, Hardy’s poem feels just as relevant on New Year’s Eve of 2025 as it did at the end of the 19th century. (If you’re like me you might need to read it a couple of times to appreciate the symbolism.)

Aiwok, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

This poem presents a landscape that is cold, bleak, and dying, one that seems almost void of meaning. Surrounded by this decay, a bird joyfully sings a “full-hearted evensong” from the twigs above. There is a lot to be disillusioned by at the start of 2026 (political corruption, religious extremism, income inequality, environmental dangers and social unrest to name a few). The thrush doesn’t offer a solution to the world’s problems, but the illogical hope of its song suggests that things aren’t necessarily inevitable. Hardy never argues the bird’s song is justified, only that it sings anyway.

There are so many stories of people who speak without reservation, act without applause, and sing without knowing if anyone is even listening. Hope doesn't always come with certainty, but like the bird’s song, it can still break the silence.