Right Royal | Page 5

a stately pair reclining;
Peering
walkers standing aside
Saw Soyland's owner pass with his bride,

Young Sir Eustace, biting his lip,
Pressing his chin with his finger-tip,


Nerves on edge, as he could not choose,
From thought of the bets
he stood to lose.
His lady, a beauty whom thought made pale,

Prayed from fear that the horse might fail.
A bright brass rod on the
motor's bonnet
Carried her husband's colours on it,
Scarlet spots on

a field of cream:
She stared ahead in a kind of dream.
Then came cabs from the railway stations,
Carrying men from all the
nations,
Olive-skinned French with clipped moustaches,

Almond-eyed like Paris apaches.
Rosy French with their faces
shining
From joy of living and love of dining.
Silent Spaniards,
merry Italians,
Nobles, commoners, saints, rapscallions;
Russians
tense with the quest of truth
That maddens manhood and saddens
youth;
Learned Norwegians hale and limber,
Brown from the
barques new in with timber.
Oregon men of six feet seven
With
backs from Atlas and hearts from Heaven.
Orleans Creoles, ready for
duels,
Their delicate ears with scarlet jewels,
Green silk
handkerchiefs round their throats,
In from sea with the cotton boats.

Portuguese and Brazilianos,
Men from the mountains, men from
the Llanos,
Men from the Pampas, men from the Sierras,
Men from
the mines of the Cordilleras,
Men from the flats of the tropic mud

Where the butterfly glints his mail with blood;
Men from the pass
where day by day
The sun's heat scales the rocks away;
Men from
the hills where night by night
The sheep-bells give the heart delight;

Indians, Lascars and Bengalese.
Greeks from the mainland, Greeks
from the seas;
All kinds of bodies, all kinds of faces,
All were
coming to see the races,
Coming to see Sir Lopez run
And watch
the English having their fun.
The Carib boxer from Hispaniola
Wore a rose in his tilted bowler;

He drove a car with a yellow panel,
He went full speed and he drove
a channel.
Then came dog-carts and traps and wagons
With hampers of lunches,
pies and flagons,
Bucks from city and flash young bloods

With
vests "cut saucy" to show their studs,
Hawbuck Towler and Spicey
Random
Tooled in style in a rakish tandem.
Blood Dick Haggit and
Bertie Askins
Had dancers' skirts on their horses' gaskins;
Crash
Pete Snounce with that girl of Dowser's
Drove a horse that was

wearing trousers;
The waggonette from The Old Pier Head
Drove
to the tune "My Monkey's Dead."
The costermongers as smart as sparrows
Brought their wives in their
donkey barrows.
The clean-legged donkeys, clever and cunning,

Their ears cocked forward, their neat feet running,
Their carts and
harness flapping with flags,
Were bright as heralds and proud as stags.

And there in pride in the flapping banners
Were the costers' selves
in blue bandannas,
And the costers' wives in feathers curling,
And
their sons, with their sweet mouth-organs skirling.
And from midst of the road to the roadside shifting
The crowd of the
world on foot went drifting,
Standing aside on the trodden grass
To
chaff as they let the traffic pass.
Then back they flooded, singing and
cheering,
Plodding forward and disappearing,
Up to the course to
take their places,
To lunch and gamble and see the races.
The great grand stand, made grey by the weather,
Flaunted colours
that tugged their tether;
Tier upon tier the wooden seats
Were
packed as full as the London streets
When the King and Queen go by
in state.
Click click clack went the turnstile gate;
The orange-sellers cried "Fat
and fine
Seville oranges, sweet, like wine:
Twopence apiece, all
juice, all juice."
The pea and the thimble caught their goose.
Two white-faced lurchers, not over-clean,
Urged the passers to "spot
the Queen."
They flicked three cards that the world might choose,

They cried "All prizes. You cannot lose.
Come, pick the lady. Only a
shilling."
One of their friends cried out, "I'm willing."
He "picked
the lady" and took his pay,
And he cried, "It's giving money away."
Men came yelling "Cards of the races";
Men hawked matches and
studs and laces;
Gipsy-women in green shawls dizened
Read girls'

fortunes with eyes that glistened;
Negro minstrels on banjos
strumming
Sang at the stiles to people coming.
Like glistening beetles clustered close,
The myriad motors parked in
rows,
The bonnets flashed, and the brass did clink,
As the drivers
poured their motors drink.
The March wind blew the smell of the crowd,
All men there seemed
crying aloud,
But over the noise a louder roar
Broke, as the wave
that bursts on shore,
Drowns the roar of the wave that comes,
So
this roar rose on the lesser hums,
"I back the field. I back the field."
Man who lives under sentence sealed,
Tragical man, who has but
breath
For few brief years as he goes to death,
Tragical man by
strange winds blown
To live in crowds ere he die alone,
Came in
his jovial thousands massing,
To see Life moving and Beauty
passing.
They sucked their fruit in the wooden tiers
And flung the skins at the
passers' ears;
Drumming their heels on the planks below,
They sang
of Dolly of Idaho.
Past, like a flash, the first race went.
The time
drew by to the great event.
At a quarter to three the big bell pealed;
The horses trooped to the
Saddling Field.
Covered in clothing, horse and mare
Pricked their
ears at the people there;
Some showed