Robert Frost had moved in 1912 to Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, where he befriended the essayist, biographer, and critic Edward Thomas. With Frost’s encouragement, Thomas began to write poetry, and the two men drew so close that they spoke of raising their families next to each other in America. Frost returned to New England in 1915, and Thomas became an artillery officer in the British army. His letters to Frost inspired this poem, which was published a few months before Thomas was killed in action on April 9, 1917, in the battle of Arras.
They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying . . . and she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight—
Living.—They gave him back to her alive—
How else? They are not known to send the dead—
And not disfigured visibly. His face?—
His hands? She had to look—to ask
“What was it, dear?” And she had given all
And still she had all—they had—they the lucky!
Wasn’t she glad now? Everything seemed won,
And all the rest for them permissible ease.
She had to ask “What was it, dear?”
“Enough,
Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,
High in the breast. Nothing but what good care
And medicine and rest—and you a week,
Can cure me of to go again.” The same
Grim giving to do over for them both.
She dared no more than ask him with her eyes
How was it with him for a second trial.
And with his eyes he asked her not to ask.
They had given him back to her, but not to keep.
The Yale Review, January 1917