Name: The Drummer
Duration: P00H03M16S
Description: A slow South African 'township' style of melody wraps around this poem by Thomas Hardy of a young drummer from a local town who died serving in the Boer War. Rather than the faraway place being a spot 'that is forever England', it is more like a sea change.

The Drummer

from Neutral Tones : Song Settings of the Poetry of Thomas Hardy by Gordon Thompson

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A slow South African 'township' style of melody wraps around this poem by Thomas Hardy of a young drummer from a local town who died serving in the Boer War. Rather than the faraway place being a spot 'that is forever England', it is more like a sea change.

lyrics

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

credits

from Neutral Tones : Song Settings of the Poetry of Thomas Hardy, released February 9, 2020
Lara Thompson - vocal | Gordon Thompson - slide resonator, harp, backing vocal. The guitar and harmonica were recorded on an iPhone 5, and the vocal on an Android.

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some rights reserved

about

Gordon Thompson Melbourne, Australia

Gordon lives in Melbourne and is the publisher at Clouds of Magellan Press, and publisher of 'Bent Street: Australian LGBTIQA+ Arts, Writing & Ideas'. He has four children (at last count) with Petrina, also one dog (Shep) and 6 goldfish (Papa Jo and the Sylvesters) ... more

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