A Farewell to Arms

There was a house, there was a village, beside it there was a river, in the bed of the river there were pebbles and stones, round and shining and white under the sunlight; there were poplar trees, orchard trees, full of ripe fruit, beside a plain brimming with abundant harvest; before the soil with the mines rose into the air and came down upon the leaves; and the withered leaves fell on the ruined plain, the ruined houses, and the ruined riverbed...