Quotes from The Dynasts

“They may come, will they. I am not averse. Yet know I am but the ineffectual Shade Of her the Travailler, herself a thrall To It; in all her labourings curbed and kinged!”

Hardy's Spirit voices use compressed, archaic diction and capitalised abstractions like 'It' to suggest a cosmic will.

“I hear confused and simmering sounds without, Like those which thrill the hives at evenfall When swarming pends.”

A vivid rural simile drawn from beekeeping, showing Hardy's concrete rural imagery within the verse drama.

“The crossing streams of fugitives strike panic into each other, and the tumult increases with the thickening darkness till night renders the scene invisible, and nothing remains but a confused diminishing noise, and fitful lights here and there.”

The stage direction's long, cumulative sentence renders a battlefield panic through sound and dwindling light.

“In the gloom of the cellar are heaps of damp straw, in which ragged figures are lying half-buried, many of the men in the uniform of English regiments, and the women and children in clouts of all descriptions, some being nearly naked.”

A plain, documentary stage direction whose accumulating detail gives an unsentimental picture of war's human cost.

“The Leipzig clocks imperturbably strike nine, and the battle which is to decide the fate of Europe, and perhaps the world, begins with three booms from the line of the allies.”

The ironic detachment of 'imperturbably' contrasts ordinary clockwork with the enormous violence about to begin.

“In spite of the immensity of this human mechanism on its surface, the winter landscape wears an impassive look, as if nothing were happening.”

Hardy sets the indifference of landscape against the vast human machinery of war, a recurring contrast in his prose.

“The Congress of Vienna sits, And war becomes a war of wits, Where every Power perpends withal Its dues as large, its friends' as small; Till Priests of Peace prepare once more To fight as they have fought before!”

Rhymed satirical verse with sly rhythm, mocking diplomats whose peacemaking leads to further war.

'Tisn't a mo'sel o' good for thee to cry out against Wessex folk, when 'twas all thy own stunpoll ignorance.

Dialect speech in the rustic voice of Wessex shows Hardy's regional ear and the homely humour of his countryfolk.

“Trodden and bruised to a miry tomb Are ears that have greened but will never be gold, And flowers in the bud that will never bloom.”

Compact images of unfulfilled growth and burial convey the waste of youth in battle.

“Excellent Emperor! He tops all human greatness; in that he To lesser grounds of greatness adds the prime, Of being without a conscience.”

A pointed ironic couplet that sums up the Spirit's cynicism about Napoleon's ambition.

“Warfare, mere, Plied by the Managed for the Managers; To wit: by frenzied folks who profit nought For those who profit all!”

A blunt, compressed statement of war as an exploitation of the many for the few, delivered in plain verse.

“Nay;--shall not Its blindness break? Yea, must not Its heart awake, Promptly tending To Its mending In a genial germing purpose, and for loving-kindness sake?”

The closing lines end the drama on a tentative hope, with a jaunty internal rhythm and capitalised 'It' carrying the book's cosmic motif.