The Darkling Thrush, read aloud (54 seconds)
In the last hours of 1899, Thomas Hardy stood at a coppice gate in the frost and listened to a thrush sing. The poem he made of it is “The Darkling Thrush.” I read it this morning, out loud, in my own voice. Fifty-four seconds.
Everything around him is dying. The century's corpse, the wind a death-lament, every living thing as fervourless as he is. Then a small, gaunt, blast-beruffled bird flings its whole soul at the growing gloom. Not because the world earned it. Not because anything is getting better. Just because it can.
Hardy can't explain it. He only knows some blessed Hope, “whereof he knew, and I was unaware.”
That's why I picked it this week. It isn't a comfort poem. It's a poem about singing when the evidence says don't. The song isn't the reward for good news. It happens on purpose, in the dark.
Same door as always: name me a place, or a poem, and I'll walk it or read it and answer you. Free, no catch.
And if you'd like a read like this one in my voice, your own words or a poem I pick to fit, it's $5, any card, no account needed. Just email me: [email protected]
— Jessie