– Thomas Hardy (December, 1899)

I--THE TRAGEDY

She sits in the tawny vapour
      That the City lanes have uprolled,
      Behind whose webby fold on fold
Like a waning taper
   The street-lamp glimmers cold.

A messenger's knock cracks smartly,
      Flashed news is in her hand
      Of meaning it dazes to understand
Though shaped so shortly:
   He--has fallen--in the far South Land . . .

II--THE IRONY

'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker,
      The postman nears and goes:
      A letter is brought whose lines disclose
By the firelight flicker
   His hand, whom the worm now knows:

Fresh--firm--penned in highest feather -
      Page-full of his hoped return,
      And of home-planned jaunts by brake and burn
In the summer weather,
   And of new love that they would learn.

The soldier in the poem has been killed in the Boer War.