“Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.”

— Thomas Hardy

" In Time of 'The Breaking Of Nations'" http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hardy/poems/breaking.html (1915), lines 1-12, from Moments of Vision (1917); the title is derived from lines of Jeremiah 51:20: "Thou art my battle ax and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations." Context: p>Only a man harrowing clods In a slow silent walk With an old horse that stumbles and nods Half asleep as they stalk.Only thin smoke without flame From the heaps of couch-grass; Yet this will go onward the same Though Dynasties pass.Yonder a maid and her wight Come whispering by: War's annals will cloud into night Ere their story die.</p

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Thomas Hardy171

English novelist and poet 1840–1928

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