Here, where Vespasian's legions struck the sands, And Cerdic with his Saxons entered in, And Henry's army leapt afloat to win Convincing triumphs over neighbour lands, Vaster battalions press for further strands, To argue in the selfsame bloody mode Which this late age of thought, and pact, and code, Still fails to mend. - Now deckward tramp the bands. Yellow as autumn leaves, alive as spring; And as each host draws out upon the sea Beyond which lies the tragical To-be, None dubious of the cause, none murmuring, Wives, sisters, parents, wave white hands and smile, As if they knew not that they weep the while.
South of the Line
Song Cycle by John Pierre Herman Joubert (1927 - 2019)
1. Embarcation  [sung text checked 1 time]
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]2. A wife in London  [sung text checked 1 time]
She sits in the tawny vapour That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled, Behind whose webby fold on fold Like a waning taper The street-lamp glitters cold. A messenger's knock cracks smartly, Flashed news is in her hand Of meaning it dazes to understand Though shaped so shortly: He - has fallen - in the far South Land... 'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker, The postman nears and goes: A letter is brought whose lines disclose By the firelight flicker His hand, whom the worm now knows: Fresh-firm-penned in highest feather - Page-full of his hoped return, And of home-planned jaunts by brake and burn In the summer weather, And of new love that they would learn.
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), appears in Poems of the Past and Present, first published 1901
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Researcher for this page: Garth Baxter3. Drummer Hodge  [sung text not yet checked]
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 to some Southern tree, And strange-eyed constellations reign His stars eternally.
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), "The Dead Drummer"
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First published in Literature, Nov. 1899Researcher for this page: Garth Baxter
4. The man he killed  [sung text checked 1 time]
Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have [sat]1 us down to wet Right many a nipperkin! But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place. I shot him dead because - Because he was my foe, Just so: my foe of course he was; That's clear enough; although He thought he'd ['list]2 perhaps, Offhand like - just as I - Was out of work, had sold his traps, No other reason why. Yes, quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You'd treat, if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown.
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), appears in Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses, first published 1909
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Walter A. Aue) , "Der Mann, den er erschoß", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
1 Baxter: "set"
2 Baxter: "enlist"
Researcher for this page: Garth Baxter
5. A Christmas Ghost‑Story  [sung text checked 1 time]
South of the Line, [inland]1 from far Durban, A mouldering soldier lies - your countryman. Awry and doubled up are his gray bones, And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified, Was ruled to be inept, and set aside? And what of logic or of truth appears In tacking "Anno domini" to the years? Near twenty-hundred liveried thus have hied, But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), first published 1899
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View original text (without footnotes)1 omitted by Joubert.
Researcher for this page: Garth Baxter