After the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century–which along with all its technological progress brought a host of negative consequences — such as child labour and unsanitary living conditions for millions —many people took a fearful or even apocalyptic view of the century to come. In this poem originally dated 1899 (in manuscript form), and published December 29, 1900, the thrush, an ordinary little bird, through his song, brings ambiguous hope to the gloomy speaker.

Structure
The poem comprises four eight-lined stanzas. The metrical rhythm is regular, alternative iambic tetrameters, that is four metrical feet or iamb ls per line alternating with iambic trimeters, that is three metrical feet per line. A iamb consists of one unstressed followed by one stressed syllable.

The effect is a quick, jaunty rhythm, surprisingly for the gloomy subject. The rhyme scheme follows the same alternating pattern ABAB CDCD. Most of the rhyme is perfect, although some are consonant, as in stanza three, ‘among’ and ‘evensong’.

Language and Imagery
The voice is that of the poet, the first person narrator ‘I’. The language is largely simple and accessible, with a few of what we might today describe as archaisms, for example, ‘afar’ and ‘nigh’.

The mood is gloomy until the end, The first stanza describes the natural world in negative imagery. The ‘Frost’ is ‘spectre-grey’ and the end of the season is ‘Winter’s dregs’. Twigs are ‘bleak’. The thrush is ‘frail, gaunt and small’.

Note also the Hardy capitalises ‘winter’ and ‘Frost’ to suggest the significance of these descriptions, a universality that is more than just specific to his observations.

Not till the last stanza does the reference to ‘ecstatic’ and ‘happy good-night air’ and ‘blessed Hope’ lift the mood.