Anthem for Doomed Youth, written in September 1917, is largely a reflection of the war's needless bloodshed. The anti-war poem begins by emphasizing the brutality of the soldier's death and progresses as the tone switches to bereavement. The last two stanzas describe how the soldier's friends and family will one day miss him but will then "burn with furious hate" for his country. The poem was inspired by a newspaper article about American casualties from a battle near Verdun. At the time, America was not involved in the war, but many people believed that it should be. This poem was therefore sent to the editor of a Boston newspaper as a protest against entering the war. It is unknown whether or not he printed it. The battles near Verdun were some of the most brutal of the war. There were so many casualties on both sides that there weren't enough bodies to bury all of them so mass graves were used instead. This made many people sickened by what they had seen and done at the war want nothing more than its end. Upon hearing that another group of Americans had been killed, Thomas Hardy wrote this poem expressing his grief and anger over their deaths.