Thomas Hardy

Poems of the Past and the Present Thomas Hardy

While the far farewell music thins and fails, And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine-All smalling slowly to the gray sea line-And each significant red smoke-shaft pales, Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails, Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting menTo seeming words that ask and ask again: "How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and GaelsMust your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these, That are as puppets in a playing h