AT THE WAR OFFICE, LONDON
(Affixing the Lists of
Killed and
Wounded: December, 1899)
Thomas Hardy -
Poems of the Past and Present
I
Last year I called this
world of gain-givings
The
darkest
thinkable, and
questioned sadly
If my own
land could heave its
pulse less gladly,
So charged it seemed with
circumstance whence springs
The tragedy of things.
II
Yet at that censured time no heart was rent
Or feature blanched of parent, wife, or daughter
By hourly blazoned sheets of listed slaughter;
Death waited Nature's wont; Peace smiled unshent
From Ind to Occident.