This is one of Hardy's many poems concerning war and its
various absurdities and tragedies. Here, the poem, told in simple language with an
absence of figurative language, narrates to us how "quaint and curious" war is through
discussing an incident told from a common soldier's point of view when he shot an enemy
just because he was his enemy, when if they had met in any other situation they probably
would have had a drink together. Note how the poem
begins:
Had he
and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to
wet
Right many a
nipperkin!
However, the one
thing that prevents this from happening is that they meet each other in war, and on the
opposite sides of war. Thus the soldier is left perplexed by what war does to us and how
in war acts of violence and murder are justified, when elsewhere, the same man that he
killed he would have helped:
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.
War is such an
absurd situation as it forces us to go against a natural, human, good nature and kill
those we, in any other situation, would have been kind to.
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