In Time of "The Breaking of Nations"[1]

1

Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.

2

Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.

3

Yonder a maid and her wight[2]
Come whispering by:
War's annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.

--Thomas Hardy (1916)


[1]Cf. "Thou art my battle axe and weapon of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations" (Jeremiah 51.20).

[2]Man.