I really like the movie The History Boys directed by Nicholas Hytner, and based on the play by Alan Bennett. I particularly like the scene in which one of the boys discusses with his teacher, Thomas Hardy’s poem Drummer Hodge about a casualty of the Boer War. Here is the poem being read and below it the text:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTk2MjQyOTg0.html
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 forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellation reign
His stars eternally.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy
Thomas Hardy:
