The man he killed
Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Man He Killed” was written in 1902 and first published in “Harper’s Weekly” on 8 November 1902. It was later included in Hardy’s 1909 collection “Time’s Laughingstocks and Other Verses”.
Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in Dorset, England, and he died on 11 January 1928 in Dorset, England, at the age of 87.A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, Hardy was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels. Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances.
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“Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have sat us down to wet Right many a nipperkin! “But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place. “I shot him dead because — Because he was my foe, Just so: my foe of course he was; That’s clear enough; although “He thought he’d ’list, perhaps, Off-hand like — just as I — Was out of work — had sold his traps — No other reason why. “Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You’d treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown.”