Shut Out That Moon, The Analysis

This poem was written in 1904. Hardy's wife is still alive, but the regret at their wasted years is not greatly dissimilar in tone from that of several of the poems he wrote after she had died. For example, in After a Journey Hardy spoke of his sadness at the fact that he and Emma had grown apart:

“Summer gave us sweets, but autumn wrought division.”
Whilst in this earlier poem he says,
“Too fragrant was Life's early bloom,Too tart the fruit it brought!”

The passing seasons of one year are seen as a metaphor for the span of an entire life - with the sweets and early bloom of the youthful spring and summertime of life contrasting sharply with the bitter tasting autumnal fruits of old age.

In this poem the poet desires to be locked away from the night-time outdoor sights, sounds and smells, because they unavoidably remind him of happier times which are now lost forever. After the strongly felt desire for escape we have a closely observed description of the thing the poet is anxious to escape from. The “stealing moon” (“stealing” in the sense that she steals across the sky, and, also, that she has stolen the past from him) reminds him too much of days,
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“Before our lutes were strewn
With years-deep dust, and names we read
On a white stone were hewn.”

Although the lute's music is metaphorical - being a reference to youthful playfulness and love and happy voices - it shows how the sense of hearing is evoked simply by a vision of the moon.

The second stanza is also involved with the heavens - but here the sense of sight had previously delighted to the clear night vision of the heavenly constellations.

The third stanza talks of the sense of smell - the sensations evoked by “midnight scents/That come forth lingeringly.” The sweetness of the scents had, in times past, been a symbol of the sweetness that existed between the poet and his love.

“When loving seemed a laugh, and love
All it was said to be.”

The final stanza deals entirely with the poet's desire for isolation - away from these natural phenomena, which arouse so many memories. He wishes to have a prison-like seclusion in which his eyes and thoughts will not be subjected to external influences, the kind that re-awake ancient associations. He craves “dingy details” crudely looming in his “common lamp-lit room,” and only the most functional of language, “Mechanic speech be wrought” - the hardness of the word “wrought” (meaning something made, usually for a practical purpose) indicates a desire for unadorned simplicity. The poem ends with the observation that the tree (of life) that bloomed so beautifully in spring (youth) was to deliver a sour fruit to him in his later, autumnal, years.

It would be wrong to read this poem too literally. Hardy does not really want to be locked away in hermit-like separation. Rather he is showing how the things in nature which return each year, or which are permanent, like the heavens, have associations for each one of us. Sometimes the happiness of which they were once a token becomes sadness. Then these natural things, because they are inescapable, instead of bringing back our happy memories, reinforce our misery. This is an example of what is meant by Hardy's “universality” - although he talks of a very private sadness, he tells of feelings that are common to all of us, for whom he speaks here.

Elements of Thomas Hardy's Poetry

The poem called “The Darkling Thrush”, also known by another title, “By the Century’s deathbed”. My analysis will include elements such as the poems’ setting, structure, imagery, diction, rhyme scheme and theme. I will go into one element at the time, and them give examples from one stanza only in that element.Therefore, this will not be a complete analysis of every element in each of the stanzas. I’d rather prefer to give a thorough description of what the different elements are and then give a few examples of each of them. In then end I will try to come up with a conclusion. Setting: The poem takes place on New Years Eve, the last day of the 19th century. It’s also the end of the Victorian Age. Winter is bringing death and desolation with it. A tired old man leans over a coppice gate in a desolate area, seeing ghosts of the past and little hope in the future. Structure: This poem has 4 stanzas, each with 8 lines. This is what we call an octave. The lines changes between having 4 and 3 stressed syllables in them, which is called tetrameter (4) and trimeter (3). Since the lines also follow a form of having one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable etc, we also call it iambic. As an example I use the poems 1st stanza. Line number 1, 3, 5 and 7 each have 4 stressed syllables, therefore called iambic tetrameter ( / - / - / - / - ). Line number 2, 4, 6, and 8 each have 3 stressed syllables, therefore called iambic trimeter ( / - / - / - ) I leant upon a coppice gate 1 Where Frost was spectre-gray, 2 And Winter’s dregs made desolate 3 The weakening eye of day. 4 The tangled bine-stems scored the sky 5 Like strings of broken lyres, 6 And all mankind that haunted nigh 7 Had sought their household fires. 8 Imagery: Through the use of personification, symbols, metaphors, alliteration (this last element may also refer to the poems structure) and a selected sort of words, he produces images in the readers mind, when all he really does is just speak from his inner state of mind, as modernists are soon to do. To show the use of imagery in this poem, I’ve taken its 2nd stanza as an example. Here he uses personification on the landscape, thereby referring to an inanimate object as if it were human. He compares the landscape to a dead body lying all around him, and the clouds becoming the coffins top, and the wind his death lament. The poet also makes use of alliteration in this poem. An example from this stanza is corpse, crypt, cloudy, canopy etc, where you easily notice the same sounds repeated several times. This has mostly a decorative effect, but it also makes you focus on these words, thereby revealing parts of the poem’s nature and temperament. The land’s sharp features seemed to be 1 The Century’s corpse outleant, 2 His crypt the cloudy canopy, 3 The wind his death-lament. 4 The ancient pulse of germ and birth 5 Was shrunken hard and dry, 6 And every spirit upon earth 7 Seemed fervourless as I. 8 Diction: The choice of words in this poem has been carefully selected, leaving little to coincidence. If you look carefully, you notice him using lots of negatively loaded words such as grey, desolate, broken, haunted etc. He himself is all alone out in the cold with all his negatively loaded words. But this changes further on in the poem. In stanza number 3 you will notice a change in the poets use of diction. In stead of keeping mainly to negatively loaded words, he suddenly makes use of positively loaded words too. Words like frail, aged, gaunt and small still remains, but you also get words like evensong, full-hearted and joy illimited. This change in diction shows the reader that something new has occurred in the poem. A song-bird has entered, 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 Hardy’s poems, is that he chooses to avoid following a “jewelled line”. He doesn’t care for writing just pretty poetry. He breaks with conventions concerning the normal use of language. At once a voice arose among 1 The bleak twigs overhead 2 In a full-hearted evensong 3 Of joy illimited; 4 An aged thrush frail, gaunt and small 5 In blast-beruffled plume, 6 Had chosen thus to fling his soul 7 Upon the growing gloom. 8 Rhyme 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 it’s 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, don’t 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, it’s often a reaction to the old one. Now was the time for a reaction. Things looked dark and not so promising. People didn’t know what hope there lay in the future, but as this poem says, there may be hope coming although you don’t 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 “Demi-Gods” just playing with him? So little cause for carolings 1 Of such ecstatic sounds 2 Was written on terrestial things 3 Afar or nigh around, 4 That I could think there trembled through 5 His happy good-night air 6 Some blessed Hope whereof he knew 7 And I was unaware. 8 Conclusion If you’ve followed me through these 5 pages, you will probably not only feel that your understanding of the poem is enhanced, but also your understanding of poems in general. I’ve tried to guide you through some of the main elements of poetry, giving a brief explanation as to what they are and how to find them. Because I’ve chosen to spend so much time on this, I didn’t use them all in each and every stanza. But now that you have it in front of you, why not try to look for signs of the different elements in the other stanzas? If I were to give my own opinion of this poem, then I think I like the other title of the poem better. It is more fitting, considering the context around the writer at the time. You are in the last day of the 19th century, the queen is breathing her last few breaths, and so is the Victorian era. Awaiting just around the corner is a completely new era, a new king, and an entirely new Period entirely different from the Victorian.