WANTED, A THESEUS;
Or, The Betting Centaurs of the Race-Course and the Cinder-Path.
Half-man, half-horse! A fitting blend indeed
To type the monster of a modern breed,
The mongrel thing, half Houyhnhnm to the view,
But fouler than the Swiftian Yahoo,
Who makes the race-course rascaldom's resort,
And shames the manliest scenes of British Sport.
Sport? The Cad-Centaur hath as little sense
Of the fine joy to which he makes pretence,
The English glorying in a fair-fought fight,
A well-run race, a show of speed or sleight,
As of the love that males of British breed
Moves in the presence of a gallant steed.
No Sportsman's fervour his; he never thrills
To the contagious sentiment that fills
The solid Saxon when, with thundering stride,
Ormonde and Minting struggle side by side;
When Cam and Isis prow to prow contend;
When George and Cumming strain from end to end
Of the long cinder-path in panting speed;
When wheelmen swift alternate lag and lead;
When white-plumed yachts spread emulative wings
To the salt wind that through the cordage sings;
When Notts and Surrey fight for pride of place,
Or the ring cheers the "many-centuried" Grace.
Bound by his betting-book, the cynic churl—
With coarse-gemmed hands and greasy frontal curl,
When fortune smiles, or frowsy when she frowns
As wolfish waifs that haunt the slums of towns—
Is brute all through and ever; blatant, base,
"Rough" in his speech, and rascal in his face;
A radiant rowdy now when some base stroke
Of juggling skill has flushed him; now "stone-broke,"
Black-hearted, beetle-browed, true gaolbird type,
Reeling and reeking, ever ruffian-ripe
For any coward act of ruthless greed
That craft may scheme, or violence may speed.
Curse of the race-course and the cinder-path!
Roughdom no dirtier, darker danger hath,—
Roughdom, that gulf of guilt with peril rife,
That lurks beneath our glittering civic life,
Like fires beneath the smiling southern wave,
Which, given volcanic vent, make earth a grave
And sea a sepulchre. Top bold it grows
In the neglect of its appointed foes,
The modern Fenris-wolf whose ravening maw
Needs muzzling with the Gleipner-chain of Law.
Eurytus at the banquet gorged with glee;
"Most savage of the savage Centaurs," he,
As Ovid sings. Pirithous, lulled to trust,
Forgot the secret strength the lurking lust,
Until wine-freed and fury-fired they broke,
From sleek civility's too slender yoke;
Then tables overset, and feast disturbed,
Destructiveness unleashed, and wrath uncurbed,
"The appearance of a captured city," lent
To the late scene of concord and content;
Then disappointed craft and thwarted greed,
Broke law's frail barriers like a trampled reed,
And the tumultuous storm of wild desire,
Found vent in rioting force and ravening fire.
Is there no moral in the classic tale?
Let vigilance but sleep and vigour fail,
Authority of prescience be bereft,
And, like Hippodamia, Law is left
To battling, fierce brute forces, prone to blood,
Civilisation's coarser Centaur-brood.
Of old the heroes conquered. At the stroke
Of angered Theseus' club of knotted oak,
The Centaurs feared and fled toward the sea,
Pursued by the triumphant Lapithæ,
Law's Lapithæ lay prone in our late fray.
Do we not need a Theseus then to-day?