Thomas Hardy wrote 'The Darkling Thrush' at the turn of the century, on the 31st of December, 1900. It was a date that compelled the poet to acknowledge that it was the end of one time and the start of another. 'The Darkling Thrush' is a poem that deals not only with the beginning of a new year and century, but also with the Hardy's apprehension about this momentous change. The poem is formally constructed, comprising of four stanzas, each one containing two quatrains. Within these, the lines of verse maintain a repetitive iambic pattern and syllable count. The poet's use of this meter creates a rhythmic flow that helps to foster a sense of time; it's progression and passing. This is constant until interrupted in the third stanza. Here, however, this deliberate metric disruption seems appropriate as it draws your attention to the change in the tone of the poet, the texture of his words and the subject of his attention. After this, the regular pattern returns as does the doleful mood of the two previous stanzas. These shape the mood of the poem by the use of imagery and figurative language. The first line in the opening stanza begins with an unremarkable scene from a winter landscape, yet quickly evolves into a coldly evocative setting bereft of any positive attributes. But by the end of the second stanza, however, the perspective shifts enormously, moving to a gloomy vision depicting the death of the century. This picture Hardy creates is greatly uninviting and one of demise. His allusions to these qualities are effective and immediate.
             Frost does give things a ghostly appearance and 'the winter's dregs', being its remnants, easily suggest impending closure of time and nature's desolation in this season. This opening quatrain ends with the metaphor of the sun as 'The Weakening eye of Day'. The Romantic personificati
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