terrestrial
      stress;
     Chill detraction stirs no sigh;
Fear of death has even bygone us: death gave all that we
     possess.’

W. D.—‘Ye mid burn the old bass-viol that set I such value
     by.’
Squire.—‘You may hold the manse in fee,
You may wed my spouse, may let my children’s memory
     of me die.’

Lady.—‘You may have my rich brocades, my laces; take each
    household key;
   Ransack coffer, desk, bureau;
  Quiz the few poor treasures hid there, con the letters kept by me.’

Far.—‘Ye mid zell my favourite heifer, ye mid let the
     charlock grow,
   Foul the grinterns, give up thrift.’
Wife.—‘If ye break my best blue china, children, I shan’t
    care or ho.’

All.—‘We’ve no wish to hear the tidings, how the people’s
   fortunes shift;
   What your daily doings are;
  Who are wedded, born, divided; if your lives beat slow or swift.

‘Curious not the least are we if our intents you make or
      mar,
    If you quire to our old tune,
If the City stage still passes, if the weirs still roar afar.’

—Thus, with very gods’ composure, freed those crosses
    late and soon
    Which, in life, the Trine allow
(Why, none witteth), and ignoring all that haps beneath the moon,

William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at
    plough,
    Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s,
And the Squire, and Lady Susan, murmur mildly to me
    now.

822   In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’1

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.