During advent — a time not intended for noise and busy-ness, but for darkness and waiting — I like to read the poem below. I’m sharing it here, at the year’s darkest point, in anticipation of Christmas and of the northern hemisphere’s tilt back toward the light. I’ve marked in bold some lines that I’m dwelling on just now, and shared some thoughts underneath. Hardy wrote the poem about the turning year, and the turning century — it was originally called ‘The Century’s End, 1900’.
The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy
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.
Oh to know how to ‘fling our souls’ upon (and despite) the growing gloom! To do this even when terrestrial things might seem to give such little cause. I think I am drawn to people who fling their souls, who put themselves in the way of hopelessness, who push the boulder up the hill even as its weight bears perpetually down. I think of people who, unseen, care for their community. It can be thankless and never ending work. There are volunteers who, invisibly, in all sorts of settings, ensure no one is lonely and everyone is fed. There are farmers who wonder whether they will be able to feed others and themselves next year, the answer less certain with a changing climate and corporate pressure. Perhaps these people are like Hardy’s darkling thrush — showing up, singing their song even in the bleakness, even when they might feel ‘frail, gaunt, and small’. Do they, like the bird, know something that others can’t? Do they hope in a way that others don’t?
Hardy brings our attention to the hope and the knowing of the thrush’s song. How might we bring our attention to the thrushes singing their unique songs in our own community? What gets in the way of hearing them? I can get caught up in the global narrative and forget local goodness. I can slip into cynicism — so often an easy, lazy option. Hope takes work, just as creating light takes energy.
In an interview, the American children’s TV presenter Mr Rogers was asked how he remained hopeful even when the world gives cause for despair. He said his mother told him that in any tragedy he should “look for the helpers” because they would always be there. I see the helpers in Gaza right now - the journalists, the doctors, the adults singing songs to children who are shocked and hungry. The helpers, the people who show up and spin light through and around and despite the darkness. The people who fling their souls so that others might see in the dark.
This advent, this dark corner of the year, I look to the darkling thrushes. Sometimes it seems that the faceless forces of capitalism (with which we are all entangled in one way or another) would rather we believe that we are isolated, surrounded by hopelessness, and in need of their salvation to function. In need of their stuff, their messaging, their solutions. But the thrushes, the helpers, remind me that it is always each other we need, even when that feels difficult. They remind me that it is possible to fling our souls — even when we feel frail, even when we doubt, even when we might not realise we’re doing it — and in doing so, to write a new song onto terrestrial things.
A few books on hope:
Active Hope - Chris Johnstone and Joanna Macy
Hope in the Dark - Rebecca Solnit
The Man Who Planted Trees - by Jean Giono
The Peace of Wild Things - a poem by Wendell Berry
Lots of children’s books (I’m going to write about these sometime)
Do you have any recommendations? Leave a comment or send a message!
Wishing you hope, peace, and song this advent — and ‘joy illimited’ when the light comes.
With love,
Elizabeth
Beautifully written. What lovely insights. Thank you.
A grand poem that - how just how was he able to feel so deeply and put that on display for us? (only Ted Hughes was on a similar plane as far as I have known)
There’s a good poem by Fiona Broadhurst called “Units of measurement” in the latest copy of ‘Rebel Poetry’
- Along with your your cry for curiosity, passion & outrage in a person she has similar sentiments in a viewed, questioned and felt sense, as the answers are adverse enough for her to frame her thoughts as powerfully on the page as she must do in her everyday life.