Read "The Dead Drummer" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
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.