More Cricket Songs | Page 7

blizzard,?Prohibited Lightning Streaks!_
Luncheon went right. The weary team?Found benches, beer, and salad sweet.?But asking blessing was too bad,?Because they all were somewhat sad?From too much Grace before their meat!
_Health to your noble name,?Monarch in fact and fame,?From twenty-two hearty lads in a party?Broadened and bronzed by the Game!_
REMEMBER, PLEASE!
When the run of the bowler is measured,?And he, with brows knotted,?Bowls fierce at your timber-yard treasured,?To pot, or be potted,?If the ball to the bone that is funny?Fly swift as a swallow,?And you squeal like a terrified bunny?As agonies follow:
Then, then is a capital season,?More fit than another,?Loose language of silly unreason?In courage to smother.?Clean speech is too frequently shamed?For Cricket to shame it!?One word is too often exclaimed?For you to exclaim it!
THE FORERUNNERS.
Beside the pillar-box a girl?Sells daffodils in golden bunches,?And with an apron full of Spring?Stays men a moment from their lunches:?Some fill their hands for love of bloom,?To others Cupid hints a reason;?But as for me, I buy because?The flowers suggest the Cricket season!
Although I trouble not to seek?A maiden proud to wear my favour,?Right glad am I to change my pence?For blooms, and smell their wholesome savour;?For as I carry blossoms home--?Sisters of gold with golden sisters--?My heart is thumping at the thought?Of pads and bails and slow leg-twisters.
My only sweetheart is a bag--?A faithful girl of dark brown leather,?Who's travelled many a mile with me?In half a hundred sorts of weather!?Once more to clasp your friendly hand,?To tramp along by Hope attended,?Dreaming of glances, drives, and cuts,?My Dear Old Girl, how truly splendid!
NET PRACTICE.
We had a fellow in the School?Whose batting simply was a dream:?A dozen times by keeping cool?And hitting hard he saved the Team.?But oh! his fielding was so vile,?As if by witch or goblin cursed,?That he was called by Arthur Style,?King Butterlegs the Worst!
At tea-time, supper, breakfast, lunch,?For many disappointed days,?We reasoned with him in a bunch,?Imploring him to mend his ways.?He listened like a saint, with lips?As if in desperation pursed;?Then gave three fourers in the Slips--?King Butterlegs the Worst!
'Twas after this the Captain tried,?In something warmer than a pet,?To comfort his lamenting Side?By pelting Curtice in a net.?Aware of his tremendous power,?The Captain used it well at first,?And peppered only half-an-hour?King Butterlegs the Worst!
But half-an-hour at such a range--?From such a Captain!--was enough?To work so prompt and blest a change?That Curtice ceased to be a muff.?When from his bed at last he came,?Where fifty bruises had been nursed,?He was no more a public shame,?Nor Butterlegs the Worst!
THE CATCH OF THE SEASON.
He was a person most unkempt,?And answered to the name of Cust.?He had a frenzied mass of hair,?A little redder than red rust,?And trousers so exceeding short?It looked as if by mounting high?They meant unceasingly to try?To change to knickers on the sly.
He was a person whom a Bat?Could view without the least distrust.?He caught me at the fifth attempt--?Imagine my profound disgust!?For if the ball had gone to hand?I had not felt the least unrest;?But, as it happened (Fate knows best!)?It struck him smartly on the chest.
I cannot tell you how he squirmed?And capered on the greensward there,?Until at last he took the ball?(Or so it seemed) from out his hair,?And meekly rubbed the coming bruise.?Thus was I humbled in the dust?Because of Albert Edward Cust.?Imagine my profound disgust!
Here's to the freckles and fielding and fun,?Here's to the joy that we ponder;?Here's to the Game that will glow in the sun?When the babes of our babies are--Yonder!

~Rivers' Popular Novels~
Crown 8vo., 6_s_.

~The House of Merrilees~. ARCHIBALD MARSHALL. _[Now Ready_.
~The Unequal Yoke~. Mrs. H.H. PENROSE. _[Now Ready_.
~The Discipline of Christine~. Mrs. BARR�� GOLDIE. _[Now Ready_.
~Peter Binney, Undergraduate~. ARCHIBALD MARSHALL. _[Now Ready_.
~Peace on Earth~. REGINALD TURNER. _[Now Ready_.
~The Countermine~. ARTHUR WENLOCK. _[Now Ready_.
~The Friendships of Veronica~. THOMAS COBB. [May 17.
~Hugh Revel, A Public School Story~. LIONEL PORTMAN. [July 25.]
~Notes on Books.~
In issuing a list of new and forthcoming publications, Mr. Alston Rivers cannot but express his gratification at the spirit of fair play which has enabled him to realise such a striking series of successes. The primary business of a publisher is to discriminate, both as to intrinsic literary merit, and with regard to what will hit the public taste, a classical illustration of the difficulty in gauging the latter being the rejection of "John Inglesant" by the late James Payn, then "reader" for an eminent firm. While fully recognising the remarkable gifts of the author Mr. Payn's hesitancy as to the book's attractions got the better of his judgment; and with "_The House of Merrilees_" it is now an open secret that very much the same point of view was taken in more than one instance. Mr. Marshall's "_Peter Binney, Undergraduate_," had been and is still decidedly popular, but his new book was more ambitious, possessing such a plot as to require