The Dead Drummer

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.

by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) , "The Dead Drummer"

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

by Garth Baxter (1946-) , "Drummer Hodge" [satb,piano], from The Battle Cry, no. 4.
by John Edmunds (1913-1986) , "The Drummer", published <<1969. [medium voice, piano]
by Alfred Matthew Hale (1875-1960) , "Drummer Hodge", op. 39 no. ? [female voice and orchestra], from Five War Poems, no. ?
by John Joubert (1927-) , "Drummer Hodge", op. 109 no. 3 (1985), from South of the Line, no. 3.

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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