d, spreading warmth and hope into an earlier desolate and dead landscape. Another thing to bear in mind (in a more of a general matter concerning his poems) as you read Hardys poems, is that he chooses to avoid following a jewelled line. He doesnt care for writing just pretty poetry. He breaks with conventions concerning the normal use of language. At once a voice arose among1 The bleak twigs overhead2In a full-hearted evensong3 Of joy illimited;4An aged thrush frail, gaunt and small5 In blast-beruffled plume,6Had chosen thus to fling his soul7 Upon the growing gloom.8Rhyme scheme:As you read it through, you easily find its rhyme scheme to be regular. There is only one irregularity in it, and this always means that its put there on purpose, and that it has a special meaning. He operates with end-rhyme, but both in masculine and feminine endings. Theme:The major theme is introduced in the poems 3rd stanza, in the appearance of a song-bird. It is probably supposed to resemble hope, and that things are not quite over yet although it may seem so. Like winter always brings death along with it, the coming of autumn restores some of it to life once more. Although things may look pretty negative right now, dont give in to it, life will return sometime, even though you are not aware of it yourself. This theme can be seen as a kind of reflection on the time Thomas Hardy lived. It was the end of an era, and end of a Period and almost the end of a Queen. And when a new Period is called for, its often a reaction to the old one. Now was the time for a reaction. Things looked dark and not so promising. People didnt know what hope there lay in the future, but as this poem says, there may be hope coming although you dont know of its coming. In the poems last stanza, the man revealing his thoughts to us sees a glimpse of hope, as the song-bird colours the air with its singing. There may be hope after all. Is it the spring coming once more? Or are his De...
