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 cloud into night
Ere their story die.
This poem was written in 1915 by the seventy-five year old poet and was published in Saturday Review before being included in his 1917 volume, Moments of Vision. It recalls a time in 1870 when Hardy was courting his future wife, Emma Gifford, and they heard the news of the French defeat at Sedan in the Franco-Prussian War and the surrender of the French Emperor Napoleon III. Although this poem was written during the new European conflict it emphasises how courtship and love endure beyond the world of warfare.
Some questions to think about:
- What is the effect of starting the poem off with the word ‘Only’?
- Do the phrases ‘slow’, ‘silent’, ‘stumble’ and ‘stalk’ add anything to the mood of the first stanza?
- What do you think is added by having the bonfire in stanza two give off ‘thin smoke’ rather than roaring flames? How does this image move easily on to the next two lines of that stanza?
- Is anything added by referring to the lovers as ‘a maid and her wight’? Does it matter that ‘wight’ is an old-fashioned term for a young man?