Help me find a poem that contained Hey Diddle imagery, cows, and a commentary on war at the end?

[groundcontrol]

This is a long shot, but I’m desperate and hoping someone can help me lol. Please help me find this poem. It’s been three years. I have very little information on it, but I’ll give all that I have in the hopes that it rings a bell for someone so you can tell me the name and put me out of my misery. 

1. It was from a physical book of poetry. No idea who the author was or what the physical book looked like. The cover could have been blue, but I also could be imagining that. 
2. It is likely not by Robert Frost. I thought it might have been, due to writing style and the fact that I seemed to recall being in a Robert Frost unit in English class when I read the poem. However, I sat down and read through every Robert Frost poem I could find and did not find this one. It is similar in style, though. 
3. The poem starts out with imagery of cows jumping over the moon and other very innocent, childlike fairy tale stuff, but in the line or two the poem shifts to talking about war and young men killing each other. I remember the affect this had on me; it was like my gut just dropped with the sheer emotional force of it. 

I hope someone can help me find this. I’m going insane haha. 

[RiversD]

Was this a book from a school/college library?

It doesn't sound quite like either of them, but there's https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/checking-out-me-history/

and https://bradbirzer.com/2015/07/08/tolkiens-1923-poem-the-cat-and-the-fiddle/

Do you have any idea if it was a specific war being commented on? Was it mentioning particular kinds of weapons?

[SleepingPhlox]

Might it be this by any chance?

LINK

[groundcontrol]

On 12/28/2020 at 6:25 PM, RiversD said:

Was this a book from a school/college library?

It doesn't sound quite like either of them, but there's https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/checking-out-me-history/

and https://bradbirzer.com/2015/07/08/tolkiens-1923-poem-the-cat-and-the-fiddle/

Do you have any idea if it was a specific war being commented on? Was it mentioning particular kinds of weapons?

 

On 12/28/2020 at 7:08 PM, SleepingPhlox said:

Might it be this by any chance?

LINK

Thanks for your responses guys!! After hunkering down and searching for the past couple days I finally found it! It’s “lines written in dejection on the eve of a great success”. 

[SleepingPhlox]

@groundcontrol I'm so glad you found it, it's a headwrecker when you sort of remember something but not quite!  And I'm also really glad you told us because I was like "Dang, now I want to know what it is so I can read it!"

 

[Heathcliff]

That's a really odd poem, but I assume it's meant to be read with all the others in the collection.

Because I didn't understand what on earth he was trying to say!