Thomas Hardy: War’s annals will fade into night

====

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Thomas Hardy: Selections on war

====

Thomas Hardy
In the Time of “The Breaking of Nations”

I
Only a man harrowing clods be
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 fade into night
Ere their story die.