Thomas Hardy - Drummer Hodge

Thomas Hardy, poet

Drummer Hodge

by Thomas Hardy (c.1840-1928)

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.

- Thomas Hardy

Quotes

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Poem Analysis: Welford

http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/analysis-of-drummer-hodge-by-thomas-hardy-6103/

by John Welford

“Drummer Hodge” by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was first published in “Literature” on 23rd November 1899 with the title “The Dead Drummer”. It later appeared as one of the “War Poems” in Hardy’s 1901 collection “Poems of the Past and the Present” with its new title.

It is one of several poems inspired by the Anglo-Boer War in what is now South Africa, fought between the British Army and settlers of Dutch origin from October 1899 to May 1902. Thomas Hardy was opposed to the war from the outset, regarding it as an imperialistic outrage that would take the lives of innocent men for the sake of enriching powerful people whose sole concern was the control of land and mineral resources. Hardy had cycled the 50 miles to Southampton to watch the troops embark and wrote several poems on that occasion, plus others at a later date as reports appeared in the newspapers. “Drummer Hodge” is one of the latter.

Although the poem mentions “Young Hodge the Drummer”, there is no evidence that there was such a person of that name. The name “Hodge” was used as a nickname by “townies” for a yokel or country bumpkin, and Hardy had used the convention before in his 1891 novel “Tess of the d’Urbervilles”. His purpose here, as in the novel, was to give character and individuality to someone who might otherwise be passed over as a nobody. That said, Hardy may well have had somebody specific in mind, given that he added a note when the poem first appeared to the effect that: “one of the drummers killed was a native of a village near Casterbridge (i.e. Dorchester)”. As Hardy himself came from such a village it is possible that he knew the family in question, or, if not, he would have been fully aware of the effect on such a family of a loss such as that described in “Drummer Hodge”.

It also needs to be borne in mind that many soldiers who went to South Africa as drummers were very young, maybe only fourteen or fifteen years of age. Many accompanied their soldier fathers or older brothers because they wished to share the adventure of war that seemed preferable to working on a farm or in a factory. They were not trained to fight, their role being to lead the fighting men into battle by beating drums to set their marching rhythm and “stiffen the sinews”. They also used drums to send signals and their other roles included taking messages and carrying ammunition. Being in the front line, and unable to defend themselves, they were extremely vulnerable and many were killed. Fortunately, the role of drummer was made obsolete in the era of “total war” that began in 1914 with World War I.

The poem, in three six-line stanzas with an ABABAB rhyme scheme, expresses Hardy’s horror at the disrespect shown to the dead body of a young drummer, his corpse having been thrown into an unmarked grave somewhere on the African plain and forgotten about, as though his existence had no value other than as “cannon fodder”.

The first stanza sets the scene in stark, unvarnished terms: “They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest / Uncoffined – just as found”. He is to be left under a “mound” that is marked only by “a kopje-crest”. Hardy makes use of this Afrikaans word (for a small rocky hillock), and “veldt” in the next line, to emphasise how foreign this environment would be for a boy from a Dorset village. This is confirmed by the mention of “foreign constellations” that “west” (i.e. set in the west) “each night above his mound”. The grave, being in the southern hemisphere, might as well be on a different planet given that there is not a single point of contact between this place and the land that Drummer Hodge knew, day or night.

This theme continues in the second stanza, but the focus turns to the perspective of Drummer Hodge himself, and the fact that, when alive, this environment would have been another world to him and so will continue that way for ever, now that he is dead. The line “Fresh from his Wessex home” (Wessex being Hardy’s name for Dorset and the neighbouring counties) allows the contrast to be made between the boy’s familiar English landscape and: “… the broad Karoo, the Bush, the dusty loam”. Again, by using unfamiliar words such as “Karoo”, Hardy points to the differences not only of geography but also of language and culture.

As with the first stanza, Hardy ends with a reference to “strange stars”, thus maintaining the theme of night following day, time after time for eternity.

The third stanza introduces a new idea with the couplet: “Yet portion of that unknown plain / Will Hodge for ever be”. His decomposing body will become part of that strange world and “Grow to some Southern tree”. This concept, of a soldier’s body becoming part of a foreign land, is one that sounds familiar to readers of war poetry, as it was used, for a somewhat different purpose, byRupert Brooke in his World War I poem “The Soldier”:

“If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed … ”

Brooke’s aim was to make a patriotic point that the sacrifice of the soldier’s life had the benefit of making a foreign place more English, and therefore better. Most readers today would take the line that Hardy’s attitude is the more honest one, namely that the hasty burial of a young soldier far from home is a matter for sorrow and lament rather than national pride. Incidentally, it is known that Rupert Brooke’s poetry was influenced by that of Thomas Hardy, and it may well be that Brooke had read Hardy’s “Drummer Hodge” before writing “The Soldier”.

As with the first two stanzas, the third ends with the stars: “And strange-eyed constellations reign / His stars eternally”. The impression given at the end of the poem is therefore of the stars looking down (“strange-eyed”) as protectors of the young boy’s body, and of Drummer Hodge’s ownership of those stars. He has been abandoned in a lonely grave in a strange land, but he will always have these Southern stars for company.

It is to Hardy’s credit that he stops short of sentimentality in this poem, even though some readers might argue that the final stanza veers a little way in that direction. Hardy does not need to labour the point that this is a needless waste of a young life for a cause that the drummer had no knowledge of and of which the poet thoroughly disapproves.

Thomas Hardy is not often thought of a “war poet”, that accolade being reserved for such as Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas, Siegfried Sassoon and Isaac Rosenberg, who fought in World War I and some whom failed to survive it. However, a number of these poets acknowledged their debt to the influence of Thomas Hardy’s Boer War poems, “Drummer Hodge” being one of them. What Hardy’s poem and those of the poets listed (among others) have in common is their concern for the common soldier as a person who is suffering and dying, as opposed to being a symbol of some greater good for which their life is being nobly sacrificed. That distinction is what marks “Drummer Hodge” out as being infinitely superior to Brooke’s “The Soldier” and other poems of that ilk that failed to appreciate the humanity of their subject. Hardy may have taken a pessimistic view of life in many of his poems and novels, but always at their heart was sympathy and empathy for ordinary people and their triumphs and tragedies. “Drummer Hodge” is a good example of this approach.

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Poem Analysis: BCSE

by BBC: BCSE Bitesize

Context

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was born in Dorset and was encouraged to develop a love for both education and stories by his mother, Jemima. He trained to be an architect and then moved to London to pursue his studies and career. After five years in the capital, he returned to Dorset and began writing more seriously.

His first writing career was as a novelist rather than a poet. Hardy published Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure that are now very well thought of but were criticised at the time. Such was the level of criticism for Jude the Obscure, Hardy decided to move away from writing books and turned to poetry.

The death of his wife Emma in 1912 had a huge impact on Hardy and he wrote many poems about her and his feelings for her. Even though he remarried (to his secretary, Florence Dugdale) it is said he never got over the loss of Emma.

Themes that recur in Hardy's writings are injustice, love, break ups, disappointment, fate and the unfair treatment of women. He was basically a traditionalist when it came to the form of poetry but one interesting thing he often did was include colloquial language. This type of language is usually heard rather than read; spoken language that is usually not standard English.

Subject matter

Dummer Hodge was originally published in 1899 under the title ‘The Dead Drummer’, only a few weeks after the start of the Second Boer War. The Boer Wars were fought between the British and the Dutch settlers of the Boer republics in what is now South Africa. There were a number of wars throughout the 19th century that were aimed at consolidating British rule throughout the Empire.

Hardy was against the Boer War. Like many liberals of the time, he thought the Boers were simply defending their homes. Why did the British feel the need to keep their territory so strongly? Perhaps the diamond and gold mines of the area had something to do with it.

Drummer Hodge describes the burial of a British soldier during the Second Boer War, in South Africa. He is buried without ceremony, a coffin, or a gravestone. His humble roots are contrasted with the exotic South African landscape, and the poet repeatedly refers to the unfamiliar stars that will watch over Drummer Hodge’s grave. Finally he introduces the idea that Hodge’s body becomes part of the landscape, so that he has some permanent home there. Despite his short life, the Drummer has become part of something that is far more permanent.

Form and structure

The poem is formed of three stanzas, each of six lines, with a very regular metre and rhyme scheme. The lines alternate between 8 and 6 syllables, with the rhyme scheme of ABABAB for each verse. This is a very common metre for traditional English hymns to follow. It seems appropriate, therefore, for this poem, about the burial of a young soldier.

Language and Imagery

There are a number of Boer words used in the poem. Boer is a term that describes the first Dutch settlers of the area that is now South Africa. Their language is called ‘Afrikaans’.

Imagery

The concept of the drummer is a key image. Drummers were young lads who beat the drum to keep time as soldiers marched. There is a sense of innocence and youth here, which gives his death more pathos.

The image of the constellations is repeated at the end of each stanza. In the first two stanzas they are "foreign" and "strange", but in the final verse, although they are "strange-eyed", they are linked closely with Hodge himself. His own"stars" are also there. The use of celestial imagery elevates the dead soldier, making him seem more important and more valued, in contrast to the careless way in which he was buried.

This is complemented by the metaphor of his being a "portion" of the land ever after. His "breast and brain", that is all of him – his heart and his mind, become the source of "some Southern tree". This sense of belonging is contrasted with the fact that his "home" was "Wessex". The sense of value and belonging together contrast with the lack of care shown for him by his fellow soldiers, which is ironic considering the reverence with which the names of the war dead are usually treated.

Sound

The use of Boer vocabulary introduces some unfamiliar combinations of sounds – the "kopje-crest" for example, combining consonants that are not usually found together. Similarly the "broad Karoo", where the assonance emphasises the strange name, sounds almost nonsensical. These words emphasise the exotic location, particularly when contrasted with the "homely" soldier.

Attitudes, themes and ideas

There is a certain amount of anger in this poem, in the contrast between the way that Hodge is treated by his own fellows, and the acceptance and value that he finds within the "unknown plain". His "homely" (that is, lowly) origins are emphasised, as is his youth: Hodge is unimportant so they throw his body into a grave "uncoffined".

The unimportance of Hodge in life forms the basis of the strange contrast in the poem. Despite his lack of importance in life, in death Hodge becomes part of something that will outlast the war, and all the soldiers who buried him: the land. He will never be a hero but the reference to "his stars" seems to suggest that Hodge even has a divine element. His treatment in death forms another contrast, with the traditional way war dead are glorified and remembered.

By concentrating on, and elevating, a single unimportant soldier in the war, Hardy is able to say something about the value of all life, and to make a powerful anti-war statement.

Sample task

In the Literary Heritage poetry comparison it’s important to think about the theme in relation to both poems, their language and imagery. You also need to include an element of personal reflection and response to the poems.

Compare the ways in which Thomas Hardy portrays the idea of remembrance of the dead in these two poems: Drummer Hodge and Transformations.

In both Drummer Hodge and Transformations Hardy explores the ways in which the bodies of the dead can become part of the landscape. In both the transformation seems initially to be literal and physical, but becomes metaphorical, so that Hardy begins to suggest a way in which the dead experience an afterlife. In Transformations a variety of different people become part of a yew tree, or other local plants; in Drummer Hodge a soldier killed far from home goes from being out of place in his "foreign" location into being a ‘portion of that unknown plain’.

The people in the two poems are very different in terms of how they are remembered by those who are still living. Drummer Hodge is buried unceremoniously "uncoffined – just as found", disregarded by his fellow soldiers, and left alone in a foreign land. In Transformations there is a sense of community continuity, as Hardy refers to "a man my grandsire knew", and various other individuals. The narrator in this poem is clearly remembering people that he knew, and perhaps people that he wants to imagine a happy transformation after death for, such as the "fair girl" he had tried to woo.

However, the degree to which other people remember them, or care about their death, does not make a difference in how they are transformed to become part of the land, suggesting that this is an inevitable process, and that the world will provide for an ongoing role for the dead, no matter whether other people remember them or not. This idea of it being ongoing is emphasised in Drummer Hodge by the use of words such as "for ever" and "eternally". Despite the strangeness of the ‘broad Karoo’ in contrast to the ‘homely’ Hodge, and the use of "Southern" and "Northern" to express the fact that he has died in South Africa, having come from his native Britain, the land still finds a way to remember him. Unlike his fellow soldiers who "throw" him in to his grave, the land seems to take care of him and welcome him in.

In both poems Hardy makes use of natural imagery to emphasise the continuing cycle of life. In Drummer Hodge the imagery includes a "Southern tree" but also the "strange-eyed constellations"; this use of celestial imagery suggests an elevation of the dead, into something grand and wonderful. Although Hodge does not have an actual gravestone to be remembered by, his grave is marked by a"kopje-crest", a hill, so that the landscape makes a natural way to remember him. In Transformations the imagery is entirely plant-based, so people become yew trees, grass or a rose. This imagery means that the dead are no longer"underground", and have a chance to experience the "sun and rain" again.

In both poems the imagery and the language suggests an idea that people are part of the landscape, and can be remembered, or have an ongoing life, through their transformation into living plants, or the land in which they are buried.

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Drummer Hodge Community Play

Robert W. Service - The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill

The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill
by Robert W. Service

I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,

Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die —

Whether he die in the light o’ day or under the peak-faced moon;

In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon;

On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier, drift or draw;

In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom, by avalanche, fang or claw;

By battle, murder or sudden wealth, by pestilence, hooch or lead —

I swore on the Book I would follow and look till I found my tombless dead.

For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss, and his mind was mighty sot

On a dinky patch with flowers and grass in a civilized boneyard lot.

And where he died or how he died, it didn’t matter a damn

So long as he had a grave with frills and a tombstone “epigram.”

So I promised him, and he paid the price in good cheechako coin

(Which the same I blowed in that very night down in the Tenderloin).

Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine: “Here lies poor Bill MacKie,”

And I hung it up on my cabin wall and I waited for Bill to die.

Years passed away, and at last one day came a squaw with a story strange,

Of a long-deserted line of traps ’way back of the Bighorn range,

Of a little hut by the great divide, and a white man stiff and still,

Lying there by his lonesome self, and I figured it must be Bill.

So I thought of the contract I’d made with him, and I took down from the shelf

The swell black box with the silver plate he’d picked out for hisself;

And I packed it full of grub and “hooch,” and I slung it on the sleigh;

Then I harnessed up my team of dogs and was off at dawn of day.

You know what it’s like in the Yukon wild when it’s sixty-nine below;

When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads through the crust of the pale blue snow;

When the pine-trees crack like little guns in the silence of the wood,

And the icicles hang down like tusks under the parka hood;

When the stove-pipe smoke breaks sudden off, and the sky is weirdly lit,

And the careless feel of a bit of steel burns like a red-hot spit;

When the mercury is a frozen ball, and the frost-fiend stalks to kill —

Well, it was just like that that day when I set out to look for Bill.

Oh, the awful hush that seemed to crush me down on every hand,

As I blundered blind with a trail to find through that blank and bitter land;

Half dazed, half crazed in the winter wild, with its grim heartbreaking woes,

And the ruthless strife for a grip on life that only the sourdough knows!

North by the compass, North I pressed; river and peak and plain

Passed like a dream I slept to lose and I waked to dream again.

River and plain and mighty peak — and who could stand unawed?

As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne of God.

North, aye, North, through a land accurst, shunned by the scouring brutes,

And all I heard was my own harsh word and the whine of the malamutes,

Till at last I came to a cabin squat, built in the side of a hill,

And I burst in the door, and there on the floor, frozen to death, lay Bill.

Ice, white ice, like a winding-sheet, sheathing each smoke-grimed wall;

Ice on the stove-pipe, ice on the bed, ice gleaming over all;

Sparkling ice on the dead man’s chest, glittering ice in his hair,

Ice on his fingers, ice in his heart, ice in his glassy stare;

Hard as a log and trussed like a frog, with his arms and legs outspread.

I gazed at the coffin I’d brought for him, and I gazed at the gruesome dead,

And at last I spoke: “Bill liked his joke; but still, goldarn his eyes,

A man had ought to consider his mates in the way he goes and dies.”

Have you ever stood in an Arctic hut in the shadow of the Pole,

With a little coffin six by three and a grief you can’t control?

Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse that looks at you with a grin,

And that seems to say: “You may try all day, but you’ll never jam me in”?

I’m not a man of the quitting kind, but I never felt so blue

As I sat there gazing at that stiff and studying what I’d do.

Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs that were nosing round about,

And I lit a roaring fire in the stove, and I started to thaw Bill out.

Well, I thawed and thawed for thirteen days, but it didn’t seem no good;

His arms and legs stuck out like pegs, as if they was made of wood.

Till at last I said: “It ain’t no use — he’s froze too hard to thaw;

He’s obstinate, and he won’t lie straight, so I guess I got to — saw.”

So I sawed off poor Bill’s arms and legs, and I laid him snug and straight

In the little coffin he picked hisself, with the dinky silver plate,

And I came nigh near to shedding a tear as I nailed him safely down;

Then I stowed him away in my Yukon sleigh, and I started back to town.

So I buried him as the contract was in a narrow grave and deep,

And there he’s waiting the Great Clean-up, when the Judgment sluice-heads sweep;

And I smoke my pipe and I meditate in the light of the Midnight Sun,

And sometimes I wonder if they was, the awful things I done.

And as I sit and the parson talks, expounding of the Law,

I often think of poor old Bill — and how hard he was to saw.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Robert W. Service

Robert W. Service
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert William Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958) was a British-Canadian poet and writer who has often been called "the Bard of the Yukon".[1][2] He is best known for his poems "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", from his first book, Songs of a Sourdough (1907; also published as The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses). His vivid descriptions of the Yukon and its people made it seem that he was a veteran of the Klondike gold rush, instead of the late-arriving bank clerk he actually was. "These humorous tales in verse were considered doggerel by the literary set, yet remain extremely popular to this day."

Amazon Link

    

Amazon Link

 Amazon Link

Robert W. Service - The Shooting of Dan McGrew

The Shooting of Dan McGrew

by Robert W. Service

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;

The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;

Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,

And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.



When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,

There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.

He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,

Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.

There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;

But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.



There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;

And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;

With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,

As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.

Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,

And I turned my head — and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,

Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.

The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,

So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;

Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands — my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,

And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;

With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,

A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;

While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? —

Then you've a haunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.



And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,

But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;

For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;

But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love —

A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true —

(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, — the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;

But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;

That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;

That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.

'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through —

"I guess I'll make it a spread misere", said Dangerous Dan McGrew.



The music almost died away... then it burst like a pent-up flood;

And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.

The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,

And the lust awoke to kill, to kill ... then the music stopped with a crash,

And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;

Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,

And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;

But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,

That one of you is a hound of hell. . .and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark,

And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.

Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,

While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.

They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so.

I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two —

The woman that kissed him and — pinched his poke — was the lady that's known as Lou.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Robert W. Service, 1874-1958

Biography of Poet

The fame of Robert Service—considerable in his day—resulted from the publication of two best-selling volumes of verse: The Spell of the Yukon (1907) and The Ballads of a Cheechako (1909). In rollicking rhythms and comical rhymes, Service regaled armchair adventures with gripping yarns of the wild Northwest—rough men braving hardship on the lonely frontier in pursuit of “the muck called gold.”

More:

Wikipedia Link - The Shooting of Dan McGrew

Read Online:

The Ballads of Cheechako, by The Gutenberg Project:

"The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ballads of a Cheechako, by Robert W. Service. This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Ballads of a Cheechako
Author: Robert W. Service
Release Date: July 1, 2008 [EBook #259]
Last Updated: January 15, 2013
Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII
Produced by A. Light and David Widger

Dangerous Dan McGrew Recited by Robert Service

(no picture)

A Love Song from a Father to his Daughter

EDDIE VEDDER OFFERS GORGEOUS NEW SONG

‘SKIPPING’ FOR COMPILATION

http://antiquiet.com/music/2012/04/eddie-vedder-offers-gorgeous-skipping-on-new-compilation/

by Johnny Firecloud

9:21 AM Sunday, April 29th 2012

EDDIE VEDDER, MUSIC

We have a beautiful new song from Eddie Vedder this morning, called Skipping. The track is featured on the new compilation Every Mother Counts, the namesake of a foundation dedicated to addressing the issue of maternal mortality during pregnancy.

The love letter from a parent to a child is a delicate, complexly personal yet gorgeous composition, a conveyance of unquenchable adoration between souls that may be entirely lost on those without children of their own – or at least a true depth of love with which they can relate.

Framed by the sounds of his own daughter playing and gentle acoustic guitar tones, the Pearl Jam frontman delivers a heartfelt performance full of gorgeous self-harmonizing that does a fine job of encapsulating the tenderness, fragility, pride, joy and immersive love of a bond between a father and child, wrapped in the metaphor of skipping along with her. He knows that the moment and innocent joy can’t possibly last forever, and the song is a conveyance of cherishing that fleeting purity of a childhood connection with a parent.

Listen to Skipping here, or below:

Eddie Vedder - Skipping

It’s a deeply personal track, once which doesn’t fit the single cycle or the hype headline machine. So it’s with a warm feeling that I’m able to post this on a quiet Sunday morning.

Lyrics

I didn't have to ask you, just took my hand

Off we went skipping throughout the land
The sky was blue and the blood filled my head
Me and you skipping throughout the land
All of my life from beginning to end
What I remember is holding your hand
And all that I'll cherish is that time that we've spent
Me and you skipping throughout the land.

All the loves lost and the one that I found
You lifted my gaze up off of the ground
Forever we'll talk and forever we'll drown
In each other skipping around.

Gravity pulls so many men down
The atmosphere breathes but not in this town
You took me away and you held me so proud
Skipping, skipping, skipping around.

All the king's horses and all the king's men
Could not keep me from holding your hand
When all that I wanted was something to protect
And all that I needed was your voice in my head
And all I remember from this life that I lived
Is me and you skipping throughout the land.

- Eddie Vedder

Read more: Eddie Vedder - Skipping Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Wikipedia Bio - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Vedder

R.E. Slater - Kindred Fellowships (a poem)

Filming Heaven

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.
Music by Ludovico Einaudi, "Nuvole Bianche"

Sunrise

Kindred Fellowships
by R.E. Slater


Have you ever watched a rising morning sun

stalking knee-high clovered fields wet in dew?

Or felt the deepening rumble of a storm cloud's approach

shrouding breathless airs soaked in fresh ozone?

Or witnessed a cold fog envelop a murky beach

against a restless sea moving in endless rhythm?

Or listened the wandering night sky's starry silence
upon a far hillside from setting dusk to waking dawn?

In all these things God's handiwork abounds,

written across the laden heavens,

across this good earth we live and breathe,

filling our hearts with wondrous mystery.

Whose very lives are held so dear,

so adorned by redeeming love,

so cherished by mercy's grace,

so lost in a world so complex and feared.

We, the living temples of God's first Words,

who wouldst tread the mounts of His holy creation,

or delve into our Redeemer's inmost sanctuaries,

impassioned by all that inspires and devotes.

We, who keep the night watches and morning suns,

who inhale evening's early mists in lingering whispers,

who are blessed and wouldst give blessing,

who seek, and grasp, and fall, and fail.

Let us praise our heavenly Sovereign for His wisdom,

our mighty Creator for all that is good and strong.

Let us sing our Savior's wonders and mercies,

met new everyday upon the souls of men.

Let us seek harmony's peace amidst its grander fellowships,

giving thanksgiving for heaven's abiding love and devotion.

And for this good earth whose good fellowship we tread,

scribing a poet's inspiration to a Redeemer's heart filled with tears.


- R.E. Slater

June 6, 2014
revised June 7-8, 22, 2014

*read to the music of Ludovico Einaudi, "Nuvole Bianche"

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

Calla Lilies along the Big Sur, Garrapata State Park, California