Beschreibung:

HARDY, THOMAS. Autograph manuscript signed ("T. Hardy") of his noted poem on the Great War, "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations,'" n.p., n.d. 1 page, 4to, a fair copy in black-brown ink, about 65 words, three stanzas of four lines each, signed and dated "1915" at end, with "From 'Moments of Vision'" written by Hardy in parentheses below the text, central fold crease . The last stanza reads: "Yonder a maid & her wight Come whispering by: War's annals will cloud into night Ere their story die." The poem, based on a Hardy reminiscence of an incident during the Franco-Prussion War, was written in 1915 and first printed in the Saturday Review , 29 January 1916; it was separately printed as a pamphlet by Clement Shorter (1916) and collected in Selected Poems (1916) and Moments of Vision (1917). With an ALS from Mrs. Florence Hardy to the American collector Paul Lemperly, Max Gate, Dorchester, 11 July 1918, 6 pages, 8vo , presenting this manuscript and discussing Hardy. "Two separate MSS. [of this poem] exist, both fair copies on fine paper. The earlier...was sent by Mrs. Hardy to the Red Cross Sale at Christie's, 26 April 1916, and is now in the [Howard] Bliss collection. The later [offered here], on a single leaf of the same paper, was made and signed after the poem had been collected. It was formerly in the possession of Paul Lemperly, a gift from Mrs. Hardy in July 1918" (R.L. Purdy, Thomas Hardy a Bibliographical Study , London, 1954, p. 176). (2)