TOPIC:

Here in NZ the events are generally run under the auspices of the RSA - Returned and Services Association.
Typically they make use of Binyon's Ode [They shall grow not old . . . .] which has fine sentiments but in fact was first published in September 1914 so in terms of timing is not strictly correct for the Boer War. Does anyone have suggestions for a suitable reading/poem/song that might be used in a similar way? Locally here in Nelson we are trying to re-establish an event to remember the 244 Nelson men who served in that 2nd Boer War. There were 13 deaths among them, 2 KIA and the remainder due to disease.
Peter Millward

Peter,

Laurence Binyon's lines from For the Fallen are so well known that they are expected, de rigueur at such events.

There is Boer War poetry but it is not a subject I have explored. Authors include Kipling and Hardy. I have also seen anthologies of Boer War poetry eg 'Ballads of the Veld-land' by Lyster, 'rummer Hodge: The poetry of the Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902' by Van Wyk Smith and 'Under cover 1900: A collection of Boer War poetry' by Doughty

This is Hardy's Drummer Hodge about a Wessex soldier who was killed during the Boer War.

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.

The lines 'Yet portion of that unknown plain, Will Hodge for ever be' stir associations with Brooke's The Soldier.

Best wishes
David