Sam, thanks for sharing the Sassoon--I only know him from the "Immortal Verse" anthology.
For the lines you quote from Hardy's poem--I swear Frost had one of them in mind for several images in "Range-Finding:"
The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung
And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest
Before it stained a single human breast.
The stricken flower bent double and so hung.
And still the bird revisited her young.
A butterfly its fall had dispossessed
A moment sought in air his flower of rest,
Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.
On the bare upland pasture there had spread
O'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread
And straining cables wet with silver dew.
A sudden passing bullet shook it dry.
The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly,
But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.
--It's the image of a bullet/shell shaking the dew from things.
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Aaron Poochigian
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