Twelve Days of Christmas
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Day 7: Literature

The Darkling Thrush

Picture
Image: Der Winter, by Caspar David Friederich, 1808-1809
A poem by Thomas Hardy.   This is also the poem selected for this day by Malcolm Guite, in his brilliant Waiting on the Word--which everyone reading this site should check out (he sort of does what we're doing here, but only with poems).   

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.

The idea of "hope" is interesting here, and I very much doubt that Hardy believed in any kind of "blessed Hope," perhaps taking instead the pre-Christian classical view that hope is for fools. This poem provides an interesting contrast to the  Gawain-poet's birds, who "piped piteously for pain of the cold."  
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  • Home
  • About us
    • Why we do this
  • ADVENT RESOURCES
  • Christmas Eve
  • Days 1-4
    • Christmas Day
    • The Second Day
    • The Third Day
    • The Fourth Day
  • Days 5-8
    • The Fifth Day
    • The Sixth Day >
      • 12/30 Scripture
      • 12/30 Prayer
      • 12/30 Carol
      • 12/30 Literature
      • 12/30 Reflection
    • The Seventh Day >
      • 12/31 Scripture
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    • The Eighth Day >
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  • Days 9-12
    • The Ninth Day >
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    • The Tenth Day >
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    • The Eleventh Day >
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    • The Twelfth Day >
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  • Epiphany
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  • Christmas Reflections