Although Wilde conceded that his ballad suffered from "a divided aim in style""some is realistic, some is romantic: some poetry, some propaganda"it remains his most powerfully didactic poem.
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With the outbreak of the Boer War (18991902) poets produced a considerable body of patriotic poetry reminiscent of Tennyson's poetic effusions in previous British conflicts. The day following the initial attack by the Boers on October 12, 1899, Swinburne published his overwrought poem "The Transvaal," which calls the Boers "dogs, agape with jaws afoam" and urges, ''Strike, England, and strike home!" Alfred Austinthe poet laureate who had succeeded Tennysonpublished "Inflexible as Fate" as a reminder that the Roman Empire had also been attacked by barbarians: "Not less resolved than Rome, now England stands, / Facing foul fortune with unfaltering hands." When the Boers achieved dramatic victories in the first few months, Henley published "Remonstrance," raising the question: "Where is our ancient pride of heart?" Urging, "Rise, England, rise!" he borrows Swinburne's line from "The Transvaal": "Strike, England, and strike home!"
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Although such mediocre patriotic verse no doubt aroused the appropriate responses from Britons disheartened over the progress of the war, a body of poems also appeared that discreetly focused on the war's consequences without overtly condemning Britain's moral position. Perhaps the most notable of these was Thomas Hardy's "Drummer Hodge" (originally entitled "The Dead Drummer"). A young farm boy, whose body was thrown "to rest / Uncoffinedjust as found," never understood why he was sent to South Africa. On that "unknown plain / Will Hodge forever be," the poem concludes, "And strange-eyed constellations reign / His stars eternally."
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Like Hardy's tribute to a senseless death, Austin Dobson's "Rank and File" celebrates those whose identity and sacrifice remain unknown:
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I mournI weep,
O Undistinguished Dead!
None knows your name.
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In "Midnight31st of December, 1900" Stephen Phillips depicts the Lord pronouncing judgment on the past century, the poet's method of condemning jingoist patriotism that had led to war: "I will make of your warfare a terrible thing, / A thing impossible, vain. . . ." In the final
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