<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=529630" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Going Of The Battery [Wive's Lament November 2nd 1899]</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O it was sad enough, weak enough, mad enough -<br>Light in their loving as soldiers can be -<br>First to risk choosing them, leave alone losing them<br>Now, in far battle, beyond the South Sea! . . .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II</div><div style="margin:10px 0">- Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly<br>Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire,<br>They stepping steadily-only too readily! -<br>Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Great guns were gleaming there, living things seeming there,<br>Cloaked in their tar-cloths, upmouthed to the night;<br>Wheels wet and yellow from axle to felloe,<br>Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Gas-glimmers drearily, blearily, eerily<br>Lit our pale faces outstretched for one kiss,<br>While we stood prest to them, with a last quest to them<br>Not to court perils that honour could miss.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sharp were those sighs of ours, blinded these eyes of ours,<br>When at last moved away under the arch<br>All we loved. Aid for them each woman prayed for them,<br>Treading back slowly the track of their march.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Someone said: 'Nevermore will they come: evermore<br>Are they now lost to us.' O it was wrong!<br>Though may be hard their ways, some Hand will guard their ways,<br>Bear them through safely, in brief time or long.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII</div><div style="margin:10px 0">- Yet, voices haunting us, daunting us, taunting us,<br>Hint in the night-time when life beats are low<br>Other and graver things . . . Hold we to braver things,<br>Wait we, in trust, what Time's fulness shall show.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Thomas+Hardy">Thomas Hardy</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=529630" data-title="The Going Of The Battery [Wive's Lament November 2nd 1899] de Thomas Hardy" data-description="I O it was sad enough, weak enough, mad enough - Light in their loving as soldiers can be - First to risk choosing them, leave alone losing them Now, in far battle, beyond the South Sea! . . . II - Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenching..."></div> </div> </div>

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