Thomas Hardy - The Thrush

Thomas Hardy had no particular religious faith. He was raised in the Church of England and went through an evangelical phase in hs youth but later his rational mind rejected Christian dogma. However, in the heart of his emotions he was still drawn to some unknown and unknowable other. His early allegiance and knowledge of the bible surface in both his novels and poems.

These two poems feature the thrush. 

In Reminder, Hardy in the midst of his Christmas warmth and plenty sees a thrush out in the frost desperately searching for food. His conscience is jerked awake. He feels guilty. How many are cold and hungry while he enjoys his Christmas? Perhaps the story Jesus told of the rich man enjoying plenty while a beggar starves at his gate comes to Hardy's mind. 

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The Reminder

While I watch the Christmas blaze

Paint the room with ruddy rays,

Something makes my vision glide

To the frosty scene outside.

There, to reach a rotting berry,

Toils a thrush, -- constrained to very

Dregs of food by sharp distress,

Taking such with thankfulness.

Why, O starving bird, when I

One day's joy would justify,

And put misery out of view,

Do you make me notice you!

The Darkling Thrush, one of his best known poems is an inverse of The Reminder. Here the man is out in the cold, seeing a bleak winter landscape before him. he is sunk in gloom. The 19th century is over like a dead corpse, the future seems shrunken hard and dry. Then a thrush bursts into "full hearted evensong", just like the faithful at a Church of England evening service singing the Nunc Dimittis:

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace 

according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen thy salvation;

The thrush in the simplicity of its nature sings out a "blessed hope". Winter will pass, Spring will come and with it new life.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth; 

the time of the singing of birds is come, 

and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land;

(Song of Solomon 12:11-12)

The Darkling Thrush

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.