Home ⇒ 📌Thomas Hardy ⇒ In Time Of "The Breaking Of Nations"
In Time Of "The Breaking Of Nations"
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 onwards the same
Though Dynasties pass.
III
Yonder a maid and her wight
Go whispering by:
War’s annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- The Breaking Point It was not when temptation came, Swiftly and blastingly as flame, And seared me white with burning scars; When I stood up for age-long wars And held the very Fiend at grips; When all my mutinous body rose To range itself beside my foes, And, like a greyhound in the slips, The Beast that dwells […]...
- Stone Breaking March wind rough Clashed the trees, Flung the snow; Breaking stones, In the cold, Germans slow Toiled and toiled; Arrowy sun Glanced and sprang, One right blithe German sang: Songs of home, Fatherland: Syenite hard, Weary lot, Callous hand, All forgot: Hammers pound, Ringing round; Rise the heaps, To his voice, Bounds and leaps Toise […]...
- To A Poet Breaking Silence Too wearily had we and song Been left to look and left to long, Yea, song and we to long and look, Since thine acquainted feet forsook The mountain where the Muses hymn For Sinai and the Seraphim. Now in both the mountains’ shine Dress thy countenance, twice divine! From Moses and the Muses draw […]...
- Breaking and Entering Many setups. At least as many falls. Winter is paralyzing the country, but not here. Here, the boys are impersonating songs of indigenous Wildlife. Mockingbird on the roof of the Gun Shop, Scrub jay behind the Clear Lake Saloon. And when she darts into a drugstore for a chocolate-covered Almond bar, sparrow hawks get the […]...
- JUNE SHE behind yon mountain lives, Who my love’s sweet guerdon gives. Tell me, mount, how this can be! Very glass thou seem’st to me, And I seem to be close by, For I see her drawing nigh; Now, because I’m absent, sad, Now, because she sees me, glad! Soon between us rise to sight Valleys […]...
- Lament of the Frontier Guard By the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand, Lonely from the beginning of time until now! Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn. I climb the towers and towers To watch out the barbarous land: Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert. There is no wall left to this village. Bones white […]...
- On A Picture Screen Whence these twelve peaks of Wu-shan! Have they flown into the gorgeous screen From heaven’s one corner? Ah, those lonely pines murmuring in the wind! Those palaces of Yang-tai, hovering yonder- Oh, the melancholy of it!- Where the jeweled couch of the king With brocade covers is desolate,- His elfin maid voluptuously fair Still haunting […]...
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 15. To-night the winds begin to rise To-night the winds begin to rise And roar from yonder dropping day: The last red leaf is whirl’d away, The rooks are blown about the skies; The forest crack’d, the waters curl’d, The cattle huddled on the lea; And wildly dash’d on tower and tree The sunbeam strikes along the world: And but for fancies, […]...
- If I can stop one Heart from breaking If I can stop one Heart from breaking I shall not live in vain If I can ease one Life the Aching Or cool one Pain Or help one fainting Robin Unto his Nest again I shall not live in Vain....
- Wars IN the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet. In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires. In the wars to come silent wheels and whirr of rods not Yet dreamed out in the heads of men. In the old wars clutches of short swords and […]...
- 327. On Glenriddell's Fox breaking his chain: A Fragment THOU, Liberty, thou art my theme; Not such as idle poets dream, Who trick thee up a heathen goddess That a fantastic cap and rod has; Such stale conceits are poor and silly; I paint thee out, a Highland filly, A sturdy, stubborn, handsome dapple, As sleek’s a mouse, as round’s an apple, That when […]...
- On the desert On the desert A silence from the moon’s deepest valley. Fire rays fall athwart the robes Of hooded men, squat and dumb. Before them, a woman Moves to the blowing of shrill whistles And distant thunder of drums, While mystic things, sinuous, dull with terrible colour, Sleepily fondle her body Or move at her will, […]...
- Lost Love His eyes are quickened so with grief, He can watch a grass or leaf Every instant grow; he can Clearly through a flint wall see, Or watch the startled spirit flee From the throat of a dead man. Across two counties he can hear And catch your words before you speak. The woodlouse or the […]...
- Now I am a Plant, a Weed Now I am a plant, a weed, Bending and swinging On a rocky ledge; And now I am a long brown grass Fluttering like flame; I am a reed; An old shell singing For ever the same; A drift of sedge; A white, white stone; A bone; Until I pass Into sand again, And spin […]...
- So Many Blood-Lakes We have now won two world-wars, neither of which concerned us, we were Slipped in. We have levelled the powers Of Europe, that were the powers of the world, into rubble and Dependence. We have won two wars and a third is comming. This one will not be so easy. We were at ease while […]...
- Snow No breath of wind, No gleam of sun – Still the white snow Whirls softly down Twig and bough And blade and thorn All in an icy Quiet, forlorn. Whispering, rustling, Through the air On still and stone, Roof, – everywhere, It heaps its powdery Crystal flakes, Of every tree A mountain makes; ‘Til pale […]...
- Milano wandering around milan my father I know that (bred in the bone) i’m you I walk and think – my legs roll onwards I take in the atmosphere but not the view But now you’re dead – and i’ve been silent For the past five months since you were burned A numbness that called itself […]...
- Mysterious doings As once I rambled in the woods I chanced to spy amid the brake A huntsman ride his way beside A fair and passing tranquil lake; Though velvet bucks sped here and there, He let them scamper through the green Not one smote he, but lustily He blew his horn what could it mean? As […]...
- Soldier, Soldier “Soldier, soldier come from the wars, Why don’t you march with my true love?” “We’re fresh from off the ship an’ ‘e’s maybe give the slip, An’ you’d best go look for a new love.” New love! True love! Best go look for a new love, The dead they cannot rise, an’ you’d better dry […]...
- Gethsemane 1914-18 The Garden called Gethsemane In Picardy it was, And there the people came to see The English soldiers pass. We used to pass we used to pass Or halt, as it might be, And ship our masks in case of gas Beyond Gethsemane. The Garden called Gethsemane, It held a pretty lass, But all […]...
- All but Death, can be Adjusted All but Death, can be Adjusted Dynasties repaired Systems settled in their Sockets Citadels dissolved Wastes of Lives resown with Colors By Succeeding Springs Death unto itself Exception Is exempt from Change...
- Lament Where are those dazzling hills touched by the sun, Those crags in childhood that I used to climb? Hidden, hidden under mist is yonder mountain, Hidden is the heart. A day of cloud, a lifetime falls between, Gone are the heather moors and the pure stream, Gone are the rocky places and the green, Hidden, […]...
- A Cloud withdrew from the Sky A Cloud withdrew from the Sky Superior Glory be But that Cloud and its Auxiliaries Are forever lost to me Had I but further scanned Had I secured the Glow In an Hermetic Memory It had availed me now. Never to pass the Angel With a glance and a Bow Till I am firm in […]...
- 'Tis Sunrise Little Maid Hast Thou ‘Tis Sunrise Little Maid Hast Thou No Station in the Day? ‘Twas not thy wont, to hinder so Retrieve thine industry ‘Tis Noon My little Maid Alas and art thou sleeping yet? The Lily waiting to be Wed The Bee Hast thou forgot? My little Maid ‘Tis Night Alas That Night should be to thee […]...
- The Weakest Thing Which is the weakest thing of all Mine heart can ponder? The sun, a little cloud can pall With darkness yonder? The cloud, a little wind can move Where’er it listeth? The wind, a little leaf above, Though sere, resisteth? What time that yellow leaf was green, My days were gladder; But now, whatever Spring […]...
- October Beauty has a tarnished dress, And a patchwork cloak of cloth Dipped deep in mournfulness, Striped like a moth. Wet grass where it trails Dyes it green along the hem; She has seven silver veils With cracked bells on them. She is tired of all these Grey gauze, translucent lawn; The broad cloak of Herakles. […]...
- Bells For John Whiteside's Daughter There was such speed in her little body, And such lightness in her footfall, It is no wonder her brown study Astonishes us all Her wars were bruited in our high window. We looked among orchard trees and beyond Where she took arms against her shadow, Or harried unto the pond The lazy geese, like […]...
- A Dream Once a dream did weave a shade, O’er my Angel-guarded bed. That an Emmet lost it’s way Where on grass methought I lay. Troubled wildered and forlorn Dark benighted travel-worn, Over many a tangled spray, All heart-broke I heard her say. O my children! do they cry, Do they hear their father sigh. Now they […]...
- Half Moon in a High Wind MONEY is nothing now, even if I had it, O mooney moon, yellow half moon, Up over the green pines and gray elms, Up in the new blue. Streel, streel, White lacey mist sheets of cloud, Streel in the blowing of the wind, Streel over the blue-and-moon sky, Yellow gold half moon. It is light […]...
- In Midnight Sleep 1 IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded-of that indescribable look; Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide, I dream, I dream, I dream. 2 Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains; Of skies, so beauteous after a storm-and at night […]...
- The Faun Sees Snow for the First Time Zeus, Brazen-thunder-hurler, Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos, Send vengeance on these Oreads Who strew White frozen flecks of mist and cloud Over the brown trees and the tufted grass Of the meadows, where the stream Runs black through shining banks Of bluish white. Zeus, Are the halls of heaven broken up That you flake down upon me Feather-strips […]...
- The stork Last night the Stork came stalking, And, Stork, beneath your wing Lay, lapped in dreamless slumber, The tiniest little thing! From Babyland, out yonder Beside a silver sea, You brought a priceless treasure As gift to mine and me! Last night my dear one listened – And, wife, you knew the cry – The dear […]...
- This Day, O Soul THIS day, O Soul, I give you a wondrous mirror; Long in the dark, in tarnish and cloud it lay-But the cloud has pass’d, and the tarnish gone; … Behold, O Soul! it is now a clean and bright mirror, Faithfully showing you all the things of the world....
- The Sun Has Set The sun has set, and the long grass now Waves dreamily in the evening wind; And the wild bird has flown from that old gray stone In some warm nook a couch to find. In all the lonely landscape round I see no light and hear no sound, Except the wind that far away Come […]...
- The Road The road is thronged with women; soldiers pass And halt, but never see them; yet they’re here – A patient crowd along the sodden grass, Silent, worn out with waiting, sick with fear. The road goes crawling up a long hillside, All ruts and stones and sludge, and the emptied dregs Of battle thrown in […]...
- My Longshore Lass Far in the mellow western sky, Above the restless harbor bar, A beacon on the coast of night, Shines out a calm, white evening star; But your deep eyes, my ‘longshore lass, Are brighter, clearer far. The glory of the sunset past Still gleams upon the water there, But all its splendor cannot match The […]...
- The Grass so little has to do The Grass so little has to do A Sphere of simple Green With only Butterflies to brood And Bees to entertain And stir all day to pretty Tunes The Breezes fetch along And hold the Sunshine in its lap And bow to everything And thread the Dews, all night, like Pearls And make itself so […]...
- The Human Tree Many have Earth’s lovers been, Tried in seas and wars, I ween; Yet the mightiest have I seen: Yea, the best saw I. One that in a field alone Stood up stiller than a stone Lest a moth should fly. Birds had nested in his hair, On his shoon were mosses rare, Insect empires flourished […]...
- Six Feet Of Sod This is the end of all my ways, My wanderings on earth, My gloomy and my golden days, My madness and my mirth. I’ve bought ten thousand blades of grass To bed me down below, And here I wait the days to pass Until I go. Until I bid good bye to friend, To feast […]...
- The Statesmen How blest the land that counts among Her sons so many good and wise, To execute great feats of tongue When troubles rise. Behold them mounting every stump, By speech our liberty to guard. Observe their courage see them jump, And come down hard! ‘Walk up, walk up!’ each cries aloud, ‘And learn from me […]...