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The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy

পাঠক অবশ্যই এবিষয়ে উৎসুক হবেন যে, The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy এর কোন বিষয়টি আমরা আলোচনা করব – Summary, Theme, নাকি অন্যকিছু? বাস্তবে আমরা করব Paraphrase, কেননা :

ইংরেজি ভাষা শেখার মাধ্যম হিসেবে মাতৃভাষা বাংলার ব্যবহারে English Book BD বদ্ধপরিকর। তবে, ইংরেজি ভাষা শেখার উৎকর্ষের জন্য, ইংরেজি কোন লেখার অনুবাদ বাংলায় না শিখে বরং সহজতর ইংরেজিতে বোঝার চেষ্টা করা উচিত। যুগ যুগ ধরে চলে আসা ELT নিয়ে সহস্র গবেষণার ফলে লব্ধ একটি সিদ্ধান্ত এটি। আমরা চাই, englishbookbd.com প্রচলিত গাইডবইয়ের কোন নতুন সংস্করণ না হোক। আর সেজন্যই ইংরেজি ভাষার শিক্ষার্থীদের নিকট অনুরোধ রইবে, জটিল ইংরেজির অর্থ সহজ ইংরেজিতে বুঝতে শিখুন। আর সেই শেখার পথে বাংলা ভাষায় দিকনির্দেশনা দেবার জন্যই নিবেদিত রয়েছি আমরা – প্রিয় শিক্ষার্থী – আপনার স্কুল-কলেজ বা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের শিক্ষার মাধ্যম বাংলা বলে হীনম্মন্যতায় ভুগবেন না। বাংলা ভাষাতেই আপনাকে সর্বোচ্চ ইংলিশ মিডিয়াম প্রতিষ্ঠানের সমান, বরঞ্চ উন্নততর নির্দেশনা দিতে আমরা বদ্ধপরিকর।

সহজ ভাষায় কঠিন বিষয়টিকে বুঝিয়ে বলার নামই Paraphrase ; Paraphrase পড়ার মাধ্যমে একজন শিক্ষার্থী text টি বুঝতে ও প্রকৃতভাবে শিখতে অগ্রসর হয়। সেজন্য, English book BD মনে করে, এজাতীয় resource সহজলভ্য করার মাধ্যমে তা ইংরেজি সাহিত্য বুঝতে প্রচলিত Summary মুখস্তবিদ্যার একটি কার্যকর বিকল্প হয়ে উঠতে পারে। Thomas Hardyর বিখ্যাত কবিতা The Darkling Thrush এর Paraphrase দিয়েই শুরু হচ্ছে এই আমাদের যাত্রা – সকলের শুভকামনা প্রার্থী।

Name of the Poem : The Darkling Thrush

Poet : Thomas Hardy

[The Thrush is ‘darkling’ means that the song bird or ‘thrush’ sang as night was approaching]

First Stanza :

I leant upon a coppice gate
      When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
      The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
      Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
      Had sought their household fires.

 

Paraphrase of the first stanza : I rested myself against a gate of timber (the gate of entering the new century), when the surrounding became covered with ghostly grey coloured frost (on a winter evening). Dregs of winter (or snowflakes) made the setting sun look very lonely and isolated from the rest of the atmosphere. (Suddenly my eyes fell on) the twisted together pair of bine stems a summer flower which seemed (to be so high reaching,) as if the broken strings of a (heavenly) lyre fell down on earth. (The dead flower stems reminded me of summer, as if, it was a reminder of the warmth and melody it had provided before). And all the people who gazed near around the day had taken shelter in the warmth of their household fireplace. (The demise of summer had left the world behind like an abandoned and colourless valley in the grasp of the harshness of winter.)

 

Second stanza :

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
      The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
      The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
      Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
      Seemed fervourless as I.
 

 

Paraphrase of the second stanza: The sharp outlines of the winter landscape seemed to me like the sharpness of a corpse (specifically, the corpse of the dying nineteenth century). The cloudy sky above the forest seemed like its tomb and the harsh sound of winter wind, its death-lament. The pulse (throbbing heartbeat) of germination and birth got assumed to be hard and dry as the dead. And every living creature seemed devoid of intensity and passion, likely as I, myself was.

 

Third Stanza :

At once a voice arose among
      The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
      Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
      In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
      Upon the growing gloom.
 

 

Paraphrase of the third stanza : At this nadir, suddenly a voice arose from above the woody shoots of the dead summer flower (bleak-twigs) and sounded full of incitement and melodious as the evening prayer. An aged thrush (song bird) having lean figure and exhausted outlook (which indicated its survival through the struggling hard winter) was discovered to deliver the tune. It appeared to me that the thrush, through its spirit-enlivening song, tried to rescue the ones who lost their heart and hope due to the gloomy atmosphere then, created by the deepening twilight as night approached

 

Fourth stanza:

So little cause for carolings
      Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
      Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
      His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
      And I was unaware.
 

 

Paraphrase of the fourth stanza : I found very distant and little cause for the singing of the bird with such ecstasy and its expression of vigorous and lively joy from inside in such scruffy landscape and its harsh wintry weather. I assume God had wilfully written (bestowed) on the thrush’s throat, the carolling (singing) enchanted with lures from paradise, for reviving hope into us, when we become frail and mournful. May be, the thrush had known some reasons of hope, which I, myself was ignorant of.

List of Important Vocabulary

  • Darkling : adjective : (literary) Growing dark or characterized by darkness (OED)
  • Thrush : noun : A small or medium-sized songbird, typically having a brown back, spotted breast, and loud song (OED)

Stanza  1

  • Leant : verb : Past form of Lean [Be in a sloping position (OED)]
  • Coppice : noun : an area of closely planted trees in which the trees are cut back regularly to provide wood  (CED)
  • Frost : (mass/collective) noun : A deposit of small white ice crystals formed on the ground or other surfaces when the temperature falls below freezing (OED)
  • Spectre : adjective : like a ghost; connected with a ghost (OED)
  • Dregs : noun : the last parts of something (OED )
  • Desolate : adjective : A desolate place is empty and not attractive, with no people or nothing pleasant in it (CED)
  • Weakening : verb : present participle form of Weaken [become weaker in power, resolve, or physical strength (OED)]
  • Tangled : adjective : together in an untidy way (OED)
  • Bine : noun : a long, flexible stem of a climbing plant, especially the hop (OED)
  • Stems : noun : the main long, thin part of a plant above the ground from which the leaves or flowers grow (OED)
  • Scored : verb : Past form of Score [to win points, goals, etc. in a game or competition (OED)]
  • Lyres : noun : an ancient musical instrument consisting of a U-shaped frame with strings attached to it (CED)
  • Haunt : verb : be frequently present at a place
  • Nigh : adverb : (archaic, literary) at a short distance away (OED)
  • Household : noun : A house and its occupants regarded as a unit (OED)

Stanza  2

  • Sharp : adjective : (of an emotion or experience) felt acutely or intensely; painful (OED) 
  • Corpse : noun : a dead body, especially of a human (OED)
  • Outleant : adjective : leant outwards
  • Crypt : noun : a room under the floor of a church where bodies are buried (CED)
  • The Canopy : noun : the uppermost branches of the trees in a forest, forming a more or less continuous layer of foliage (OED)
  • Death-lament : noun : a passionate expression of grief or sorrow for someone’s death (OED)
  • Ancient : adjective : very old; having existed for a very long time (OED)
  • Pulse : noun : A musical beat or other regular rhythm (OED)
  • Germ : noun : an initial stage from which something may develop (CED)
  • Shrunken : adjective : having become smaller in size; wrinkled or shriveled through old age or illness (OED); also Past Participle form of  Shrink (verb)
  • Fervourless : noun : without intense and passionate feeling (OED)

Acknowledgement : The Thomas Hardy Society

To know more about Thomas Hardy, see :  Encyclopaedia Britannica

For more resources on literature, visit our POETRY section.