Read "At the War Office, London" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
(_Affixing the Lists of Killed and Wounded_: _December_, 1899)
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.