In Time of "The Breaking of Nations" [THOMAS HARDY]

     

          
                I
Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.
            
                II
Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.


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