Allusion again

[milo]

The allusion might be there right from the title (‘Darkling, I listen…), but I must admit it never occurred to me that it was an allusion.
Wikipedia insists that nightingales are not thrushes

yah, it is rather famously an allusion to Keats.  Darkling - sure, right in the title.  Nightingales aren't thrushes but that might be deliberate, Hardy probably wanted to contrast the cultural destruction he felt the West was going through against Keats more personal depression easily salved by "the wings of poesy" or whatever that line was.

I remember when I first heard that ( I had never read the nightingale poem before that) I went and read it and I thought it leaned TOO heavily on Keats.  The allusion seemed to be drawing more from Keats than the whole Thrush poem, almost felt like a ripoof.

Of course, time has moderated my feeling about it and I feel more complexly about it not but, if I am being honest, the thrush poem never really recaptured the awe I had for it originally, it seemed a little thinner afterwards.