Thomas Hardy (Upper Bockhampton, 2 June 1840 – Dorchester, 11 January 1928) was of course too old to take part to the war. Nevertheless he wrote a relevant number of war poems and poets like Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke (he wrote about the Boer War, too). The poem we choose today, taken from
Poems of War and Patriotism (1917), seems to reply to two fundamental questions: how is writing poetry in war time? And what does writing poetry mean under the bombs? The action of writing is a blinkered gesture. The beginning in the first stanza looks like a typical full moon scenery and a dialogue between the soldier and the satellite begins. The turning point is perhaps the fifth stanza and the crucial moon's words ("And now I am curious to look / Into the blinkered mind / Of one who wants to write a book / In a world of such a kind”.)
I LOOKED UP FROM MY WRITING
I looked up from my writing,
And gave a start to see,
As if rapt in my inditing,
The moon’s full gaze on me.
Her meditative misty head
Was spectral in its air,
And I involuntarily said,
“What are you doing there?”
“Oh, I’ve been scanning pond and hole
And waterway hereabout
For the body of one with a sunken soul
Who has put his life-light out.
Did you hear his frenzied tattle?
It was sorrow for his son
Who is slain in brutish battle,
Though he has injured none.
And now I am curious to look
Into the blinkered mind
Of one who wants to write a book
In a world of such a kind”.
Her temper overwrought me,
And I edged to shun her view,
For I felt assured she thought me
One who should drown him too.
