6th Year Poetry

1
Thomas Hardy

• 6th Year Poetry

2
The Darkling Thrush

• Lines 1 -16
• It is a winters evening and the poet is taking a
  walk in the countryside.
• He stops and leans upon a gate and views the
  surrounding landscape. The gate is at the
  entrance to a coppice, a thicket of trees that
  are grown and regularly cut for timber.
• The suns light is beginning to fade. Frost lies
  upon the ground and in the fading light seems
  like a ghostly shade of grey spectre-grey
• The poet looks up at the sky through the trees.
  The criss-crossing branches make lines across the
  sky and the poet likens them to the broken
  strings of an instrument The tangled bine-stems
  scored the sky / Like strings of broken lyres

3
The Darkling Thrush

• Lines 1 -16
• The poet is alone. Those that work nearby have
  gone home to warm themselves by the fire all
  mankind that haunted nigh / Had sought their
  household fires
• Hardy considers the shape of the landscape before
  him. Without leaves the lands features seems
  pointed or sharp.
• The countryside is likened to a dead body that
  has been laid out. The cloudy sky serves as the
  cover or canopy of the tomb. The wind makes a
  mournful sound like a death lament
• The natural world seems to have withered and
  died. The poet also feels wasted, his enthusiasm
  and inspiration used up.

4
The Darkling Thrush

• Lines 17-32
• The poet suddenly hears a bird singing in the
  branches of the trees above him At once a voice
  arose among/The bleak twigs overhead
• It is a full-hearted song of the evening,
  expressing limitless joy.
• The poet identifies the bird. It is an old
  thrush, its body frail, gaunt, and small
• Though it appears frail the thrush sings with
  great energy and passion. The poet describes how
  his feathers are all ruffled with the effort it
  is making to blast out its tune.

5
The Darkling Thrush

• Lines 17-32
• Despite the fact that the world around it appears
  bleak and the light is growing gloomy, the
  thrush has chosen to passionately pitch its
  song against the growing darkness to fling his
  soul/Upon the growing gloom
• Hardy wonders what is inspiring the ecstatic
  sound. The dreary landscape doesnt prompt such
  joy.
• He concludes that the bird feels or senses
  something divine or blessed of which Hardy is
  unaware.

6
THEME Nature

• The poem describes how gloomy the natural world
  can appear in winter. The landscape before the
  poet is dreary and depressing
• The only colour is the spectre-grey of the
  frost.
• The rotting leaves on the ground are Winters
  dregs
• The branches of the trees are tangled and look
  like they are scratching against the sky scored
  the sky
• The countrysides features are described as
  sharp
• The world seems dead. The land resembles a
  corpse, the sky is like the canopy of a
  crypt and the wind is like a death lament
• The world has lost all energy and life. The sun
  is weakening

7
THEME Nature

• The bleak landscape seems to reflect the poets
  own mood. He describes himself as fervourless
  (passionless).
• The lyre is a traditional symbol of poets. The
  image of the broken strings of the lyre then
  represents the loss of inspiration that the poet
  is experiencing.
• But the poem also reveals how the natural world
  can inspire and give reason for hope. The poet is
  surprised to hear a bird singing with such
  enthusiasm in this environment. He wonders if the
  bird can sense the presence of God in the world.

8
LANGUAGE

• Metaphor
• The poet uses a metaphor to describe the sun,
  referring to it as the weakening eye of a day
• He also uses a metaphor to describe the land as a
  corpse
• He also compares the sky to a burial chamber
  His crypt the cloudy canopy
• Simile
• He uses a simile when he compares the stems of
  the trees to strings of broken lyres

9
LANGUAGE

• Personification
• The poet personifies the century that has just
  passed, comparing it to a corpse that has been
  laid to rest.
• Sounds
• There are many examples of alliteration and
  assonance in the poem
• The repeated d sounds in the third line are an
  example of alliteration
• Lines 10 and 11 feature repeated c sounds
• Assonance and alliteration feature in the first
  line of the third stanza and the fourth stanza.

10
During Wind and Rain

• In this poem the poet describes the activities of
  a particular family.
• In the first stanza they are singing their
  favourite (dearest) songs together. The whole
  family is involved He, she, all of them, some
  sing the higher parts, some the lower and some
  middle range Treble and tenor and bass and one
  of the family accompanies them with an
  instrument And one to play
• It is evening and the room they perform in is lit
  by candles, which softly illuminate the faces of
  the family members With the candles mooning
  each face"

11
During Wind and Rain

• In the second stanza the family are out in the
  garden, clearing the moss that has appeared on
  the walls.
• They are Making the pathways neat and the
  garden pleasant or gay. They construct a seat
  in the shade of the trees where they can escape
  the heat of the sun and again, everyone is
  involved Elders and juniors

12
During Wind and Rain

• In the third stanza they happily eat breakfast in
  the garden They are blithely breakfasting all.
  The word blithely suggests that they dont have
  a care in the world.
• They sit beneath the shade of a summer tree
  with a view of the bay before them.
• While they eat, domesticated fowl come up to
  them While pet fowl come to knee

13
During Wind and Rain

• In the final stanza the family are in the process
  of moving to a larger house They change to a
  high new house.
• All their possessions are gathered in the garden,
  ready for the move Clocks and carpets and
  chairs
• They are a wealthy family and they own many fine
  things brightest things that are theirs

14
During Wind and Rain

• However, all the while that the family are
  enjoying themselves and working to make their
  world more comfortable and pretty, the years are
  racing by. The poet is conscious of this fact and
  the notion disturbs and horrifies him Ah, no
  the years O!
• Time is a destructive force that will eventually
  destroy everything. Evidence of this is always
  close to the family though they seem oblivious to
  it
• While the family sing their dearest songs the
  leaves outside are being stripped from the trees
  in great number.
• While they are busy making their garden neat,
  white storm-birds fly overhead, a sign a storm
  is brewing.
• The poet describes a rose that has grown rotten
  being stripped from the wall.
• In time, all members of the family will be dead
  and buried beneath the earth. The poem ends with
  an image of rain falling on their gravestones
  Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs

15
THEME Life Is Fragile

• The poem describes a world that seems not to care
  about our existence. The family busy themselves
  with their various activities but all the while
  destructive forces are at play.
• The poems title is During Wind and Rain and it
  suggests that our lives are lived in the midst of
  dark forces that will eventually destroy us and
  all we build.
• The family in the poem seems unaware of this
  terrible fact, though it is something the poet
  cannot forget.
• They sing their songs and happily eat their
  breakfast, seemingly oblivious to the storms and
  winds that rage around them.

16
THEME Life Is Fragile

• There is a sense in which the family seem to
  think they can master and tame the natural world
• The clear the moss that creeps up the walls of
  the house
• The cut back the grasses and weeds that cover the
  pathways
• They build a seat with a canopy to shield them
  from the sun
• The keep domestic birds in the garden that are
  comfortable around the family.
• Such activities give the impression that they are
  in control of their environment. But the poem
  suggests that we can never master or tame the
  natural world.
• In the end, the storms will destroy any efforts
  we make to tidy the world around us, and the
  weeds and plants will continue to return and
  grow. The winds and rains will persevere long
  after have died and will rain down on our graves.

17
LANGUAGE

• Form
• The poem is made up of four seven-line stanzas.
  The first five lines of each stanza describe a
  cheerful family scene, while the last two lines
  focus on the destructive passage of time.
• Atmosphere and Tone
• The opening lines are bright and cheerful and the
  atmosphere is pleasant. However, the tone changes
  dramatically in the sixth line when the poet
  observes how time is forever passing.

18
LANGUAGE

• Sounds
• The poet uses alliteration in the first line of
  the third stanza with the repeated b sound.
• Alliteration also features in the final line of
  the third stanza, the repeated r sounds
  creating an unpleasant sound rotten rose is
  ript
• The repeated c sounds in the fourth stanza
  offers us a further example of alliteration
  Clocks and carpets and chairs
• The poem also features examples of assonance. It
  is there in rotten rose and also in the final
  line of the poem with the repeated long vowel
  sounds give the line a threatening feel Down
  their carved name s the rain-drop ploughs