Drummer Hodge

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General

-cross rhyming

- imabic pentametre (like the beat of a drum)

-3 simple regular stanzas links to the innocence of the boy

-last 2 lines always reference to stars suggesting idea of fate

1-2 drummer hodge

3-4 landscape

5-6 stars

1 of 4

1st Stanza

'they throw' = nameless force creates distance

-brutal yet casual suggests lack of respect

'to rest'

- ironic with the way they dispose of him

'uncoffined - just as found'

- like an object

- monosyllabic

'foreign constellations west'

- stresses the distance

'his mound' =insignificant 

- primitave, not a real grave

2 of 4

2nd Stanza

'young Hodge the Drummer never knew'

- emphasises how young and naive he was

'fresh from his Wessex home'

- again suggesting his age and youth

'broad karoo'

- mixed register as in a different language

'the dusty loam'

- contrasts with 'fresh'

'strange stares amid the gloam'

- suggests his unfamiliarity 

- emphasises his death lying on ground looking up at stars

3 of 4

3rd Stanza

'uknown' 

- emphasisng distance and unfamiliarity

'his homely Northen breast and brain grows to some southern tree'

- simple boy - sense of place

-'northern' and 'southern' suggest great distance - conflicting

'strange eyed constellations reign'

- 'reign' government - people are just political puppets

'eternally'

- suggests the secureness that he will never leave

4 of 4

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