Depressed? Read this poem, again
By: Tooth Truth Roopa Vikesh
Tags: Depression, Poetry, Diversity, Parenting, Thomas Hardy

Depressed? Read this poem, again

There’s more to Thomas Hardy than sad stories and the weather

Image by Joshua Wilcox on Unsplash

Indian dentists don’t usually read poems, written by poets in the 19th century. With this one, I had no choice. My 17-year old had it in her school text, and she subtly blackmailed me into reading it with her, me being a hotshot Medium Top Writer in Diversity and Parenting y’know!

We had quite the time reading it together, bonding, as we were both dragged down by Hardy’s pessimism.

For a while, mom and daughter laid aside their differences to bash away at Thom Hardy

My daughter is a computer nerd, who loves mathematics, and is at odds with my profession, too boring, my weight, too much, my posture, too hunched, my friends, none, my voice, too loud. I don’t like much about how she leads her life either, starting with phone time, too much.

Suffice to say that it is a rare day that we spend an hour together discussing poetry, and when we’re not in each other’s crosshairs.

Hardy’s whiny, about the weather, the season, and even the calendar

This poem, the first in my daughter’s 12th standard English reader, was hard. Hardy makes a big deal about the “end of the century, end of the year” He talks about the end of the century as if somebody had died. The century’s corpse outleant?

Really? The century, what, DIED? Just because the clock struck midnight? What is this, your grandfather’s clock that was too large for the shelf, and so it stood ninety years on the floor?

And what’s all that about the ancient pulse of germ and birth, shrunken hard and dry, every spirit upon the earth, seems fervourless as I.

Honestly? The depression in the first two paragraphs gets to you, fills you with fear of being tangled up in bine stems, chills you with broken lyres and even the household fires are sought, not found.

Then he gets too happy, when the poor thrush starts to sing

He also seems to overdo the jubilation in the last two paragraphs. He’s surprised by a child of the darkness, a Darkling thrush, whose song is full hearted evensong, of joy illimited.

Even when the poor thrush sings his heart out, in blast-beruffled plume, and chooses thus to fling his soul upon the growing gloom, Hardy’s saying that the thrush is nuts to do this, and you feel sorry for the thrush, flinging his soul? Meaning he dies after singing the song? Like that old chap, O. Henry’s Behrman in The Last Leaf who dies after painting that leaf for Johnsy?

Then Hardy’s moldy about his happiness at the thrush, saying, some blessed hope, whereof he knew, and I was unaware.

Bollywood does the dip and rise better, we felt

He didn’t lift us as high as he flung us down and I was quite upset with Hardy for this. In a Bollywood movie, the hero, the lead actor, often gets bashed up to bits in the middle of the movie, but he gets his bloody revenge in the end. All the plums come in the end.

In Hardy’s poem, for us, they didn’t. We left the poem feeling dissatisfied and somewhat cold and depressed, feeling sorry for the silly Hardy weeping over snow and a calendar date.

So why would I discuss this poem in the middle of winter?

Well.

Yet the sad poems are the ones you seek and with which you destroy your depression

It isn’t about winter at all. It is about depression and pessimism.

What he says is simple. Keep thinking all the saddest thoughts in the worst environment. Freeze and shatter, ice and splice, yourself and your soul.

You’ll still find a reason to smile. A newspaper boy. A hotdog vendor. A florist. A child on the subway in a Spider-Man mask and matched with Spider-Man socks.

This person will have so little cause for carolings. Yet, they fill the area with ecstatic sound.

Grab the reason and run with the smiles.

Moping isn’t natural. It is just a way to beg for sympathy, like Hardy does in the beginning of this poem.

Just like sad to happy song playlists can make you feel yourself blending in with the sadness and lifting up as the playlist gets happier, paragraph by paragraph, Hardy dumps you down to pick you up in the end.

When I was reading paragraphs 1&2, the desolation got to me. The words were just too sad! The spectre of Frost, the desolate eye of the weakening day, the dregs of winter, the haunting mankind that flees to seek a household fire… ah! It is too much.

Hardy’s sad story

I kept reminding myself: his 23-year old married daughter died in a boating accident. She drowned because she was wearing too many petticoats under her billowy gown. He’s a sad guy, it is a great poem. It rhymes so well.

Nope. I couldn’t feel sorry for this guy, he was a little too good at making me feel sad.

Real life thrush

Then, problems between my ears made me mope. I went to my quick-fix. I did Jillian Michaels Hard Body, a tough metabolic cardio workout to improve my mood.

Zip. No change: my lips still turned downwards.

1500 steps away from 10k, I decided to do another workout, and I did: Joanna Soh’s level up walking and standing abs workout. This didn’t improve my mood either.

It was then that I saw this poem, tacked on to the wall by my daughter mugging for her exams.

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small, in blast-beruffled plume, had chosen this to fling his soul, upon the growing gloom.

So who was my aged thrush? Well, it wasn’t. There usually isn’t. That’s why we have the poem, because thrushes aren’t going to show up and sing for you. The poem is the thrush.

The poem seemed new

All of a sudden, the poem which has been there for me forever seemed new.

I told my daughter: The Darkling Thrush isn’t about the weather! It is about depression. When you’re depressed, something outside of you will give you the signal, but it is you who must take that signal and improve your own mood by yourself, because nothing works except for what you do by yourself.

There are times for poems by Robert Browning, in happy times, but there are other times like 2020. Here’s the text of the song from the play, Pippa Passes.

Pippa Passes — a play with an uber-happy song in it, by Robert Browning, 1841

The year’s at the spring

And day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hill-side’s dew-pearled;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in His heaven —

All’s right with the world!