Hardy does seem to stand, as Mark H notes, in this double ground that feels distinctly modern -- I know the bird sings, I know what the song might mean, and I am also incapable of reading that song's intention, and understand what I'm lending to it as a listener....
It's a pleasure, in Hardy, that the bird is striking his note of hope without any apparent regard for audience.

One proposed caveat: presumably the bird's caroling has an intended audience, but it's a bird-mating audience, and what's in focus here is (merely) what it is that humans, or at least Hardy's narrator, can make of that caroling (as unintended audience).

That caveat aside, I quite concur with your reading, and I also liked what Halliday said. I'd used the term 'agnostic' myself to characterize my view of Hardy's conclusion but his note and now yours amplifying it strike me as summing up the heart of what has come through various threads and multiple interpretations here, at least with regard to the substance of the poem.

The fact that, unlike the various Romantics in their odes and homages to birds, Hardy is neither addressing the bird directly - "thee" "thou"-ing the bird, nor idealizing "him," adds to the point collectively constructed here regarding what is unique to Hardy's pov.

But even more pivotal, to my mind, is that through a deft albeit simple verb or two (e.g., "That I could think..."; "was written" being a volitional and human act, with unidentified but usual-suspect-like agents, both human and natural), he makes it clear (to me) that it is the narrator who chooses to hear ecstasy and Hope in the bird. And that is really all that a human can do, to choose to hear a sound that has "so little cause" to register and yet to hear it anyway, to interpret it however fleetingly as potential uplift amid gloom. In this, I hear not only the agnostic tone but also an existentialist one. That end note captures the essence of the existential focus on choice, that (as, say, Victor Frankl, would conclude) there is amid the worst (even holocaust-level) cause for gloom and complete despair a space for hearing hope ... and mushing on... no longer quite so "unaware" of what it took a bird's caroling to bring to mind, and in that roused awareness (of the possibility of hearing ecstasy amid the gloom), there is a note of "blessed Hope."

SHOULD TAKE THE BIRD AS THEIR SUBJECT, RATHER THAN JUST USING THE BIRD METAPHORICALLY

Well, that eliminates a lot of bird poems, Billy Collins, since metaphors are a poet’s stock in trade. Anyway, here is my abbreviated list, which does include some metaphorical images and themes. Thanks for asking, and I hope my list is of help.

HARDWARE SPARROWS by R. T. Smith

"but the house sparrows are . . ." by Jon Woodward
PLEASE TAKE BACK THE SPARROWS by Suzanne Buffam

SPARROWS by Robert Cording
BRAVE SPARROW by Michael Collier
LOST PARROT by Susan Mitchell
MOURNING DOVES by Cathryn Essinger
THE CLEARING by Richard Forester
STILL MISSING THE JAYS by Stanley Plumly (I think he has several bird poems in his most recent collection)
SNOW OWL by Dave Smith

SPRING SONNET, WITH MY SISTER’S FAVORITE BIT OF DEBORAH by Jacqueline Osherow
THE CROWS START DEMANDING ROYALTIES by Lucia Perillo
FELIX CROW by Kay Ryan
HOODLUM BIRDS by Eugene Gloria
THE HAWK by Marianne Boruch
MOCKINGBIRD by Kay Ryan
AT THE SHORE by Andrew Jantz
SEAGULLS by John Updike
PEACOCK DISPLAY by David Wagoner
THE AUTHOR OF AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY SKETCHES A BIRD,
NOW EXTINCT by David Wagoner
THE LAST IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER by Bruce Tindall
CLIFF SWALLOWS by Debra Nystrom
GRACKLES by Lisa Williams
A GRACKLE OBSERVED by Lisel Mueller
A THRUSH BY UTAMARO by Eamon Grennen
EVOLUTION IN INDIANA by Richard Cecil
COMMON LOON by Daniel Wolff
CARDINALS by John L. Stanizzi
THE DALLIANCE OF EAGLES by Walt Whitman
HAWK ROOSTING by Ted Hughes

Zinya, yes, I should have said "human audience" -- surely that bird would like to be heard by another. But are we sure it's about mating?

I think you're right that Hardy's really careful about employing verbs (like that conditional tense in "I could think") that point to an epistemological work going on, a process of volition and decision-making being applied to perception: how do I see what I see, and how do I go about my knowing? Which would suggest that he's a precursor of Stevens? Thirteen ways of looking at what the thrush said?

Mm, touché. My turn: I wasn't being as careful in word choice as Hardy would be (or as we are projecting him to have been :-): I used "mating" glibly - and, as seems to be my wont today, synecdochally, to mean bird-to-bird communication in general.

precursor to "Thirteen ways"? a stretch perhaps, but I love it.

The closest parallel in the rest of Hardy's to the ending of Thrush is the ending of "The Oxen," where TH is discussing the old folk belief that the animals would kneel at Midnight on Christmas Eve:

So fair a fancy few believe
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve
"Come; see the oxen kneel

"In the lonely barton by yonder comb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

i.e., "Hoping it might be so" but knowing that it would not be so.

Hardy, like many many people of his time, was strongly religious when young but found that he could not sustain conventional religious belief and maintain his intellectual honesty. But the emotional habit and desire for belief was still there.

What separates Hardy from the thrush is his brain. And he (as well as being a lifelong, intense lover of animals), isn't completely happy about it.

Randy Cauthen, I like your succinct post, which gets to the heart of the matter (and poem). Your last paragraph is, as the Mastercard card ads say, "priceless."

Hi Mr. Collins and others. I've been reading through these inspiring threads this morning and I don't see mentioned yet the early Milton sonnet to a nightingale, which in some ways jumpstarted this genre (certainly influencing Keats). To Mr. Collin's request for bird-specifics rather than metaphors, I've always found a ornithological explication of some of Milton's terms helpful.

Sonnet 1

O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray

Warbl'st at eeve, when all the Woods are still,

Thou with fresh hope the Lovers heart dost fill,

While the jolly hours lead on propitious May,

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day,

First heard before the shallow Cuccoo's bill

Portend success in love; O if Jove's will

Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay,

Now timely sing, ere the rude Bird of Hate

Foretell my hopeles doom in som Grove ny:

As thou from yeer to yeer hast sung too late

For my relief; yet hadst no reason why,

Whether the Muse, or Love call thee his mate,

Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

Important to note that many cuckoos are brood parasites who can disguise their calls to replicate the songs of many other birds, including nightingales, in order to kill and replace their young. Both birds are natural night-singers, unlike the thrush, and so it one can roughly interpret Milton's metaphor as juxtaposing the two, and wondering which one he's hearing as he lies awake at night (like old Satan in Paradise Lost dreaming up a revolution, or Milton himself again in Book III hearing his unnamed Wakeful Bird).

Nightingales sing earlier than cuckoos, but of course Milton couldn't see the dawn, or the sunset. In the end he admits that he's lost. He serves love and the muse...but, if they're different, which is which? Is the muse the cuckoo who can disguise her voice and whisper soothingly to its host until it grows enough to destroy the true creations of the adopted parent? Or is the cuckoo more like common carnal love which drives out all rational impulses? The poet doesn't know who to trust, and though he's hoping it's a divine nightingale inspiring his desire, he can't tell the difference, because they both come out of the night of his own consciousness. Only God knows, the poet remains unaware.

Something Mark said sprang out at me:

"It's interesting that Keats has his thrush tell us twice, "o fret not after knowledge -- I have none," as if to make it quite clear that the singer in question knows quite a bit, though believe he does not."

Because song thrushes do, in fact, say things twice. As with the lines from Browning's 'Home Thoughts from Abroad'

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!

I wonder sometimes what difference ornithological knowledge makes to people's appreciation of bird poems — whether you miss anything if you've never listened to a skylark or a nightingale.

A great question Heraclitean raises. This link takes you to a website with good recordings of North American thrushes: <link> You have to click on "home" then go to the "animals" section, and there you'll see it.

I haven't found a recording of a nightingale yet.

Okay, one more post. Here's a <link> video of a nightingale singing in Suffolk. Not what I expected!

jeez MaryAnn, do you only read the poetry of the last decade or two?

Randy overrates human brains or underrates animal ones. I saw a golden eagle circle the inlet cove of a Sierra lake, dive & carry a trout in his talons to a pine top, perch & chow down, then take off & spiral in widening circles upward far above the surrounding 1000 foot ridges, until I went crosseyed trying to follow. What was he doing wasting all those calories soaring? And what was the grizzled veteran pine martin doing when he caught me watching him traverse a boulderslope using his forepaws almost like a monkey, and froze and stared back at me for 10 seconds and then moved on as if nothing had happened?

MaryAnn and August,

Many thanks for setting me straight on the Slate posting culture. As you guessed, I have never posted here before, until drawn here by the combination of Hardy and Robert. It is indeed a rich and wonderful culture. I happen to be just starting our 10-day residency at the Stonecoast program, which is why I am posting at 1 Am... but I am enjoying the observations and threads, chaotic as they are, immensely.

Mark, I am so grateful to you for posting the Thrush song! It's wonderful. I want to go find some immediately. Has anyone ever seen one? This site has information on its oh-so-sadly shrinking habitat and population and some leads on how to help it come back. <link>

Randy and Zinya,

The ending of "The Oxen" seems a very good parallel indeed. But the slight but crucial difference is that "The Oxen" ends on a note of hoping--while "The Darkling Thrush" ends on a note of wilfully choosing NOT to hear hope. The narrator has conjured up the hope, but only to decide that he doesn't feel it/is not aware of it. A pretty complex feat of irony.

I've posted my own idea as to why Hardy would choose this willful unawareness in the thread called "Anticlimax." <link>

I'd be interested to know what any of you think of this idea.

Not wishing to get too sidetracked onto ornithology, but the thrush Hardy was probably listening to was a Song Thrush, (Turdus philomelos). There's a youtube video of one singing here:

<link>

I tend to think, btw, that the nightingale is famous not so much because it's the most beautiful singer, although some of the noises they make are very lovely; but partially because they sing at night and partially because of the sheer volume, which is quite amazing when you get close to them.

And here's a skylark:

<link>

They are the most amazing birds; they sing for minutes at a time, hundreds of feet up in the air, so if you look carefully you can just see a little speck fluttering away up there. Though not on that video.

jeez MaryAnn, do you only read the poetry of the last decade or two? Touche, Jim. However, from his post, I assumed Billy Collins had already read through classic and modern poetry for the particular kind of bird poems he was seeking. So I only added some contemporary ones he might have missed. However, to address your question in a broader way, I do find myself reading mostly 20th century poetry. I developed my love of poetry later in life, about 8 years ago, when I read McClatchy's Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry. Since I am largely self-taught, I know I have huge gaps in my knowledge of poetry. But that just means I have much to look forward to as I continue to read. Mary Ann