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.