REFinBlog

Editor: David Reiss
Cornell Law School

May 29, 2017

A Soldier’s Death

By David Reiss

portrait of Thomas Hardy by William Strang

Thomas Hardy by William Strang

To commemorate Memorial Day, a poem about the death of a soldier:

Drummer Hodge

by Thomas Hardy

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 up some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.
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