A toymaker earns his living carving wooden soldiers with golden instruments and dapple-grey horses. But when he hears real trumpets and drums as an army marches out, something shifts. He burns all his toy soldiers in the fireplace, as if refusing to make war into a child’s game. That same night he creates a delicate ballet dancer from tinted tissue paper, and the next day he begins carving a Pietà—Mary holding the dead Christ—on the steel hilt of a cavalry sword. The title means “mercy,” and that idea hangs over the whole scene. The poem feels quiet and somber, full of sorrow and quiet protest. The speaker watches him with sympathy, not judgment. The mood is one of turning away from violence and toward fragility, grief, and compassion. The sword, an object of war, becomes the surface for an image of mourning.
Misericordia — Summary
He earned his bread by making wooden soldiers, With beautiful golden instruments. Riding dapple-grey horses.
But when he heard the fanfare of trumpets And the long rattle of drums As the army marched out of the city.
He took all his soldiers And burned them in the grate ;
And that night he fashioned a ballet-dancer Out of tinted tissue-paper.
And the next day he started to carve a Pieta On the steel hilt Of a cavalry sword.