The Dead Drummer

Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)



I

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
   Uncoffined--just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
   That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
   Each night above his mound.

II

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew -
   Fresh from his Wessex home -
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
   The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
   Strange stars amid the gloam.

III

Yet portion of that unknown plain
   Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
   Grow up a Southern tree.
And strange-eyed constellations reign
   His stars eternally.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

29 sec read
75

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABAB CDEDCD FGFEFG
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 591
Words 98
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, was not a Scottish Minister, not a Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland nor a Professor of Eccesiastical History at Edinburgh University. more…

All Thomas Hardy poems | Thomas Hardy Books

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