Produced by David Widger from page images generously provided by the Internet Archive
_Most of these pieces appeared during the war. The usual acknowledgements are tendered to The Spectator in three cases and The Times in two, as well as to Land and Water, The Cologne Post and sundry School Magazines._
No Lord's this year: no silken lawn on which
The Schools take guard upon a fierier pitch
Bigger the cricket here; yet some who tried
His heart's as black as skins in Carolina!
Either he breaks, or shoots almost as dead
While the deep-field-gun, trained upon your
But like the time the game is out of joint--
Both legs go slip, and there's sufficient point
Cricket? 'Tis Sanscrit to the super-Hun--
Cheap cross between Caligula and Cassius,
To whom speech, prayer, and warfare are all
Playing a game's beyond him and his hordes;
Better one sporting lesson learnt at Lord's
Sinks a torpedoed Phoebus from our sight;
Over the field of play see darkness stealing;
Now for their flares... and now at last the
Only the stars now, in their heavenly million,
One from the boy, still safe, still sound!
Bronzed leaves still cling to every bough.
He still comes twinkling down our street.
"And the one with the ribbon who's home on
All fingers and thumbs--and very few chums.
"Why, many's the goal you have watched him
Yet his eyes are fixt as the furrow betwixt?"
In the deep still shade of the Colonnade,
They are laughing here, they are chaffing there,
"Oh, those are the ones who never shall leave,
They marched away from the school at eve,
With deathless blooms from uncoffin'd tombs
"But who are the ones they can help or harm?"
And the thing to resist with a doubled fist,
And the Game to play if he'd tread the way
Ruddy young Ginger was somewhere in camp,
Saying, "Your son, Sir, is one of my fags,"
Then to his tailor's for khaki _complet_;
Ruddy young Ginger! Who gave him that name?
Blushing and grinning and looking fifteen,
Bags his man's wind as succinctly and clean
Death on recruits who fall out by the way,
Next month, to the haunts of fine Ladies and
The stateliest chambers were hospital wards--
In spite of his hurts he looked never so red,
Though his hair had been cropped (by machine-
He was mostly in holes--but his cheek was
The loveliest Sisters had most to transact