Drummer Hodge

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.

This poem is often compared with Brooke's "The Soldier"http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/33925-Rupert-Brooke-The-War-Sonnets---V-The-Soldier