Lord’s Leave

       Table of Contents

      (1915)

      No Lord's this year: no silken lawn on which

       A dignified and dainty throng meanders.

       The Schools take guard upon a fierier pitch

       Somewhere in Flanders.

      Bigger the cricket here; yet some who tried

       In vain to earn a Colour while at Eton

       Have found a place upon an England side

       That can't be beaten!

      A demon bowler's bowling with his head—

       His heart's as black as skins in Carolina!

       Either he breaks, or shoots almost as dead

       As Anne Regina;

      While the deep-field-gun, trained upon your stumps,

       From concrete grand-stand far beyond the bound'ry,

       Lifts up his ugly mouth and fairly pumps

       Shells from Krupp's foundry.

      But like the time the game is out of joint—

       No screen, and too much mud for cricket lover;

       Both legs go slip, and there's sufficient point

       In extra cover!

      Cricket? 'Tis Sanscrit to the super-Hun—

       Cheap cross between Caligula and Cassius,

       To whom speech, prayer, and warfare are all one—

       Equally gaseous!

      Playing a game's beyond him and his hordes;

       Theirs but to play the snake or wolf or vulture:

       Better one sporting lesson learnt at Lord's

       Than all their Kultur. . . .

      Sinks a torpedoed Phoebus from our sight;

       Over the field of play see darkness stealing;