THE DARKLING THRUSH

‘The Darkling Thrush’ written by Matthew Arnold, paints a bleak picture of the barren
landscape in the dead of winter. The frozen surroundings mirror the dejection and gloom
the poet feels, and what many people felt, at the turn of the century. The poem is also
known by another title-“By the Century’s Deathbed”. The poem takes place on New Year’s
Eve, the last day of the 19th Century. The transition of one century to the next is the subject
of the poem.

The speaker leans upon the ‘Coppice gate’ as he surveys the bleak and harsh winter
landscape. The Frost covers the land like a ‘spectre-grey’ – a grey ghost. The winter day is
ending as the sun weakens and sets. The poet personifies the Frost and the Winter season
to give them human qualities. It is a desolate, melancholy scene –
“Winter’s drags made desolate
The weakening eye of day”

The ‘tangled bine–stems’ create a depressing and negative image as they ‘scared the sky’.
They resemble ‘Strings of broken lyres’. There is no music and no joy left in the world,

No human beings are out on this cold and dark night. They have ‘sought their household
fires’. The speaker is alone on the haunted night.

The barren, icy landscape seems to be the corpse of the last century. The cloudy sky seems
like the century’s tomb. The sharp winter wind is its ‘death lament’.
“The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse out leant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind its death lament.”

The end of the year also marks the end of the century. The century is personified as a
corpse.

The poet melancholy was shared by many people in Britain at that time. The industrial
revolution had transformed Britain. People migrated to cities which soon became packed
with smog and soot.

In winter nature comes to a standstill. The seeds that germinate and give new life are
‘shrunken hard and dry’.

People are nothing more than spirits. They are as lacking in passion and intensity as the
speaker himself.
“Every spirit upon the earth
 Seemed fervourless as I”
The poet has lost all hope. He sees a world without promise or future.

Suddenly a joyful song breaks out among the frosty twigs overhead. It is a ‘full hearted
evensong’ ‘of joy illimited’. It is a thrush that is singing a joyful song.

The song of the thrush is in contrast with its appearance. The bird is ‘aged’ ‘frail, gaunt and
small’ with a ‘blast beruffled plume’. There is nothing in the image of the thin, feeble and
scruffy bird that suggests the source of its inspiration and joy. In the deepening darkness the
bird’s song rings out. It chooses to ‘fling its soul’ into the song.

No one knows what has inspired the bird – ‘So little cause for carolings’. The bird sees a
reason to be joyful, though the poet cannot comprehend that reason. The ‘ecstatic sound’
of the bird is in complete contrast to the gloom of the surroundings. The poet cannot
fathom what ‘terrestrial things’ could have inspired ‘his happy good-night air’.

There is some cause for such ‘blessed Hope’ which the bird knew of but the poet ‘was
unaware’. Hope is personified as if it were a human being giving hope to mankind. Hope is
like Jesus who came in the form of a human to save mankind.

The song of the bird tells the poet that there is cause for joy in the world. He does not see
the slimmer of joy or hope yet, but it is present.