Drummer Hodge: An Essay
The Drummer Hodge: an Essay
DRUMMER HODGE: An Essay
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 forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.
It is my belief that Thomas Hardy’s poem, Drummer Hodge, speaks to us all, even now. How many other Drummer Hodges are in the American Armed Services? Where are our young men who didn’t come back? Where are the freckled-faced boys from those distant farms and crowded barrios and inner city ghettos that sing cadence to the causes of this day? Are these new Hodges so unloved, unremembered and “uncoffined?” This poem brings to question our ethical responsibilities when we send boys to war, and the need for war itself and that is what we will examine in the next few minutes in The Drummer Hodge.
Like Hodge, in today’s Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps we see equally naive young men, wanting to do their bit for their country. Also like Hodge, many of our sixteen and seventeen year old boys join the services, from high school, out of a sense of social responsibility, bravdo, and false romanticism. It is true. I remember that after 9/11 I saw high school boys actively seeking out the armed service recruiters once posted in the halls of the High Schools. No more. It is currently illegal to so do.
We know these boys. Like Drummer Hodge, they are now remembered. People read their names daily in the newspapers of our small towns. There is some moral irony here. Like Hodge, will these boys
DRUMMER HODGE: An Essay
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 forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.
It is my belief that Thomas Hardy’s poem, Drummer Hodge, speaks to us all, even now. How many other Drummer Hodges are in the American Armed Services? Where are our young men who didn’t come back? Where are the freckled-faced boys from those distant farms and crowded barrios and inner city ghettos that sing cadence to the causes of this day? Are these new Hodges so unloved, unremembered and “uncoffined?” This poem brings to question our ethical responsibilities when we send boys to war, and the need for war itself and that is what we will examine in the next few minutes in The Drummer Hodge.
Like Hodge, in today’s Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps we see equally naive young men, wanting to do their bit for their country. Also like Hodge, many of our sixteen and seventeen year old boys join the services, from high school, out of a sense of social responsibility, bravdo, and false romanticism. It is true. I remember that after 9/11 I saw high school boys actively seeking out the armed service recruiters once posted in the halls of the High Schools. No more. It is currently illegal to so do.
We know these boys. Like Drummer Hodge, they are now remembered. People read their names daily in the newspapers of our small towns. There is some moral irony here. Like Hodge, will these boys
Cited: Hardy, Thomas. "The Dead Drummer." Poems of the Past and the Present. Ed. Systems, Accessible Publishing. London: Accessible Publishing Systems Property Limited, 2008. 15. Print. Jimmythejock. "World War Ii: The Home Front and Rationing". 2009. A look at the lives of families on the home front. HubPages. 3/20/2011 2011. . Kramer, Dale. "Thomas Hardy: A Biography by Michael Millgate." Review March, 1983: 604-08. Print. Morgan, Kenneth O. "The Boer War and the Media." 20th Century British History 13 1 (2002): 1-16. Print.