How is the theme of hope explored in "The Darkling Thrush?"

After three stanzas describing relentless hopelessness in a blighted landscape of death, desolation and "winter's dregs," the poet hears the sound of a thrush singing. The aged bird is "caroling" with great joy. The poet hears the hope in the sound of the bird's "ecstatic" song, and wonders where it can possibly come from. The poet hears the hope but can't feel it: he is "unaware" of it. Unlike an earlier Romantic poet, such as Wordsworth, this poet isn't uplifted by the natural world and doesn't feel at one with or healed or comforted by the bird's song. The bird only highlights the man's sense of hopelessness and alienation.

Hardy is a writer known for his fatalism: this poem reflects that sensibility. As far as the poet is concerned, he can't construct meaning from the bird's song and can't understand the bird's hope.