'Drummer Hodge' by Thomas Hardy describes the burial of an English soldier in the Boer War.

        The contrast between the soldier and his strange resting place is prominent in the second stanza. Hardy again uses the Afrikaans term “Karoo” and the imagery of the harsh and dry bush land. The repetition of the image of dust and ground is a reference to the burial the Drummer should have received it also acts as a bigger metaphor for growth and fertility. Hardy also uses the foreign stars to highlight Hodge’s alien grave, Hodge would have seen the constellations before his death but too rarely for him to know them.

“Yet a portion of that unknown plain

Will Hodge for ever be;”

Hodge remains un-heroic throughout the poem and dies “unknown”. However, despite his ignorance of the land that now surrounds him, Hodge’s body will now be part of the veldt forever. His body will provide the nutrients to help grow “some Southern tree” which will eventually provide for the South Africans creating an irony that Hodge would have ‘died for his country’ yet buried in a strange land with no dignity and goes on to provide for the people he was fighting against. Graves’ poem also leaves the protagonist as an unknown and un-heroic character. He never has a true identity but is just labelled a “boche”; one of many. Graves’ description of the dead body is not at all positive, the words “stunk”, “face a sodden green” and “big-bellied” all create a disgusting and ugly image of the soldier. He is not seen as a brave man who died for his country and here is where Graves can be called realistic as he has described the soldier literally. It is untypical of many war poems which would generally glamorise the death of a soldier.

        Throughout the poem, there are strong references to Hodge’s age and his foreignness to the country. The term “Drummer” instantly highlights his age as well as the use of the adjective “Young”. This evokes a strong emotion in the reader and makes his premature death all the more wasteful. The repetition of the imagery of stars emphasises how this soldier would have just been one of thousands who died under a vast and foreign sky. Similarly, Graves’ dead German is presented as one of many; the German is not referred to as the dead boche but rather “a” dead boche. The rhyme scheme used in ‘A Dead Boche’ means that certain words such as “blood” and “stark” are emphasised as rhyming words. This together with the alliteration of “black blood” really adds to the traumatic and horrific feel of the poem.

        Graves’ poem emphasises the horror of war without glory, the soldier has died unknown, with no family around him and no-one to give him a proper burial. This can be seen as realism from Graves however Hardy also expresses this realism with the fact that the young soldier will be buried away from home, just thrown into a grave under “foreign constellations”. Yet Hardy’s language involves a lot of metaphors and adjectives which could be seen to make the poem idealistic yet hardy obviously has confronted the idea of death in war. Typical idealistic war poems involve ideas of happy singing and fighting for their ‘King and Country’ yet ‘Drummer Hodge’ involves a young soldier. Hardy makes it obvious that he realises the negative aspects of war however he still seems emotionally inspired by the war whereas Graves seems to have moved to a point beyond that. Graves expresses an indifference and immunity to the horrors as he describes the dead German in a cynical and matter-of-fact way.

        It could be seen that Hardy describes the death of the soldier in an idealised way. The imagery of stars and resting with the constellations over the soldier is aromantic and pleasant way to be. However his protagonist is a young boy who dies away from his home, who will forever be under a sky he doesn’t know and will eventually go on to nourish the people he was fighting against. This seems to be very realistic and cynical. Graves describes the dead German with very simple and visual adjectives which instantly conjure up images in the reader’s mind. His view of the dead soldier could be seen as realistic yet his tone, especially in the first stanza, suggests a cynicism that makes his poem seem traumatic.