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.
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.
Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.
This is one of my all time favourite poems and I wanted to share it. In my first year at uni when the bleakly beige walls of my little room were looking pretty bare, my friend wrote out this poem for me to stick up on the wall. It's horribly sad but so delicately written and the combination, albeit probably not the right reaction, makes me smile.
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