JOSEPH BRODSKY
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valid consideration in verse. He is not big on sonority and orchestrates
his lines rather poorly, until it comes to the punch line of the poem, or
to
the main point the poem is trying to score. That's why his exposi–
tions are not particularly mellifluous; if they are - as is the case in "The
Darkling Thrush" - it is more by fluke than by intent. With Hardy, the
main adventure of a poem is always toward its end. By and large , he
gives you the impression that verse for him is but the means of trans–
portation, justified and perhaps even hallowed only by the poem's desti–
nation. His ear is seldom better than his eye, but both are inferior to his
mind, which subordinates them to its purposes, at times harshly.
So what we've got by now is a picture of utter desolation, of a
man and a landscape locked in their respective moribundity. The next
stanza offers a key:
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-h earted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small
In blast-berufIled plume
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon th e growing gloom.
This is a treasure trove of a stanza for anyone interested in Hardy.
Let's take its story line at face value and see what our poet is up to. He
is up to showing you an exit out of the previous stanza's dead end.
Dead ends can be exited only upward or by backing out. "Arose" and
"overhead" tell you the route our poet chooses. He goes for a full-scale
elevation here ; in fact, for an epiphany, for a complete takeoff with
clear-cut ecclesiastical connotations. But what is remarkable about this
takeoff is the self-consciousness accompanying the lyrical release of "In a
full-hearted evensong / Ofjoy illimited." This self-consciousness is appar–
ent in the dactylic undercutting you detect in both "evensong" and
"illimited": these words come to you prefaced by a caesura and as
though exhaled; as though these lines that begin as assertions dissipate in
his throat into qualifiers.
This reflects not so much the understandable difficulty an agnostic
may have with ecclesiastical vocabulary as Hardy's true humility. In other
words, the takeoff of belief is checked here by the gravity of the speak–
er's reservations as to his right to use these means of elevation. "An aged
thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, / In blast-beruffed plume" is, of course,
Hardy's self-portrait. Famous for his aquiline profile, with a tuft of hair
