A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919/In Time of "The Breaking of Nations"
IN TIME OF "THE BREAKING OF NATIONS"[1]
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 fade into night
Ere their story die.
1915.