Drummer Hodge
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 forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellation reign
His stars eternally.Thomas Hardy, November 1899
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Beautiful.
Sad that so many fine children need to die to afford me a day’s vacation, though.
Off topic, except to the extent that the topic is poetry, rather than sadness:
I commend to you this Gene Weingarten online artifact, and suggest that you look at the poll prior to reading the stuff in the article. Gene is brilliant, but my feeling is that he’s wrong about some of the things he says about poetry.
If you do all this, I would be interested in hearing various opinions on the poems in question.
peace
Matt