In Time of "The Breaking of Nations"

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 fade into night
 Ere their story die.

Thomas Hardy