2016 Hardy's Monument
Near Dorchester, with great views of the Dorset countryside, the Hardy commemorated is the sailor (Kiss me, Hardy) rather than the poet and novelist of the same name. I choose to remember the gentle poet, who had something to say about war.

 

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 shall cloud into night

Ere their story die.

 

Thomas Hardy, 1915.