More Cricket Songs | Page 2

whose dimples there lodge?Significant signs of inordinate stodge.
Ay, give me the lad who is eager and chubby,?A Stoddart in little, a hero in bud;?Who'd think it a positive crime to grow tubby,?And dreams half the night he's a Steel or a Studd!?There's the youth for my fancy, all youngsters above--?The boy for my handshake, the lad for my love!
THE DARK BOWLER.
I know that Bowler, dark and lean,?Who holds his tongue, and pegs away,?And never fails to come up keen,?However hard and straight I play.?Spinning and living, from his hand?The leather, full of venom, leaps;?How nicely are his changes planned,?And what a lovely length he keeps!
Because he pulls his brim so low,?However earnestly one tries?One never sees the darkling glow,?That must be nimble in his eyes.?The fellow's judgment never nods,?His watchful spirit never sleeps.?There was a clinking ball! Ye gods,?Why, what a splendid length he keeps!
At times he bowls an awkward ball?That in the queerest manner swerves,?And this delivery of them all?Takes most elastic from my nerves:?It comes, and all along my spine?A sense of desolation creeps;?Till now the mastery is mine,?But--what a killing length he keeps!
That nearly passed me! That again?Miraculously missed the bails!?Too good a sportsman to complain,?He never flags, he never stales.?Small wonder if his varied skill?So fine a harvest daily reaps,?For how he marries wit and will!?And what a deadly length he keeps!
UNCLE BOB INDIGNANT.
_("Flannelled fools at the wicket")_
Come, poke the fire, pull round the screen,?And fill me up a glass of grog?Before I tell of matches seen?And heroes of the mighty slog!?While hussies play near mistletoe?The game of kiss-me-if-you-dare,?I'll dig for you in memory's snow,?And where my eager spade shall go?Uncover bliss for you to share,
My Boys!
As sloppiness our sport bereaves?Of what was once a glorious zest,?And female men are thick as thieves,?With croquet, ping-pong, and the rest,?Prophetic eyes discern the shame?Shall humble England in the dust;?And in their graves our sires shall flame?With scorn to know the Nation's game?Cat's-cradle; Cricket gone to rust,
My Lads
Ah, for a winged and wounding pen,?In vigour dipped, to pierce the age?When girls are athletes, not the men,?And toughness dwindles from the stage!--?When purblind poet cannot see?That in the games he wishes barred,?Eager, and hungry to be free?As when it triumphed on the sea,?The Viking spirit battles hard,
My Sons!
If you have need of flabbier times,?Colensos, Stormbergs, Spion Kops,?Tell cricketers to take to rhymes,?And smash at once the cross-bar props.?When sportsmen, tied to sport, refuse?To offer lead the loyal breast,?To tramp for miles in bloody shoes,?To smirch their souls, to crack their thews,?Then let the poet rail his best,
My Hearts!
Aye, if our social state be planned?Devoid of giant games of ball,?Macaulay's visitor will stand?The earlier on the crumbled wall.?Nerve, daring, sprightliness, and pluck?Improve by noble exercise;?The wish to soar above the ruck,?The power to laugh at dirty luck?And face defeat with sparkling eyes,
My Braves!
By George, there goes the supper-bell!?And yet your duffing Uncle Bob?Has never told you what befell?When all his team got out for blob.?So much for bad poetic gas?That gets my ancient dander up!?Well, to the banquet! What is crass?Shall deeply drown in radiant Bass?While we as Vikings greatly sup,
My Hearts!
THE TUTOR'S LAMENT.
I refuse to find attractions?In the ancient Roman native;?I am sick to death of fractions,?And of verbs that take the dative:?It is mine to be recorder?Of a boy's congested brain, Sir,?With the pitch in perfect order?And the weather like champagne, Sir!
I--the sport of conjugations--?I am cooped up as a lodger?Where I serve out mental rations?To a proudly backward dodger.?While the two of us are dreaming?Of the canvas and the creases,?Close we sit together, scheming?How to pull an ode to pieces.
Even now in London's gabble?Memory's magic tricks the senses!?Plain I hear the streamlet babble,?Smell the tar on country fences:
Down the road Miss Grey from Marlett?Skirts the fox-frequented thicket,?In her belt a rose of scarlet,?In her eyes the love of cricket.
There's my mother with her ponies?Underneath Sir Toby's beeches,?Pulling up to share with cronies?News of grapes and plums and peaches:?Many a gaffer stops to fumble?At his forelock as she passes,?While the children cease to tumble?Frocks and blouses in the grasses.
Though my body stays with duty?Here to work a sum or rider,?Mother's magnet and her beauty?Draw my soul to sit beside her!?Ah, what luck if I were able?There to play once more in flannels,?Free from all this littered table,?Virgil's farmyard, Ovid's annals!
There's a loop of leather handle?Peeping underneath the sofa!?Is tuition worth the candle?When the conscience turns a loafer??'Tis the rich and backward Boarder?Proves indeed the Tutor's bane, Sir,?When the turf's in ripping order?And the weather like champagne, Sir!
A WIGGING.
"To throw your hands above your head?And wring your mouth in piteous wise?Is not a plan," the Captain said,?"With which I sympathise.?And with your eyes to ape a duck?That's dying in a thunderstorm,?Because you deprecate your luck,?Is not the best of form.
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