BASE-BALL BALLADS.
PLAY BALL.
“Play ball”—across the field of green
The signal sounds the game again;
Once more there reels across the scene
The shout and wild acclaim again;
The game is on, the fight begun,
Across the line of battle’s span
Until the final score is spun
With every record of the clan.
“Play ball”—the reveille has rolled
The bugle call to play again;
Once more beneath the banner’s fold
They troop across the way again;
The game is on, and in the fray
The tumult and the cheering sweep
Across the battle line of play
Until the twilight shadows creep.
“Play ball”—the slogan of the game
Of life, of war, of love or hate;
For rank or wealth, for name or fame
The player stands against the plate;
The game is on, and in the strife
Where Fate, the pitcher, speeds the ball
The player plays the game of life
Until the final shadows fall.
WHEN THE BUG IS ON THE BAWL.
Come, sing ye, Jimmy Riley, from your ancient lyric stock,
“When the frost is on the pumpkin and the fodder’s in the shock,”
And we’ll let the bounding echoes catch the lyric in your lay
As it darts around the bases to the outfield and away;
For there’s music in its make-up and there’s rhythm in its run,
With a touch of “back to nature” in its sentiment of fun.
But in some way it has struck us that the theme is out of date,
As a new age comes a-whizzing and a-curving by the plate;
So we’ll start another chorus as the echoes rise and fall:
“When the bat is on the bingle and the bug is on the bawl.”
Come, sing ye, Jimmy Riley, and we’ll listen to your strain,
But we find our thoughts a-straying from the waving of the grain
To the waving of the bludgeons as the batters draw ’em back,
And they wave against the trade-mark with a wallop and a whack,
And “the swimmin’ hole” is faded, with its one-time tender pull,
To the “hole” the pitcher’s got in with the bloomin’ bases full;
And while, whatever happens, we will never have a knock
For the “frost upon the pumpkin and the fodder in the shock,”
There’s a later theme that draws us where the echoes rise and fall.
When the bat is on the bingle and the bug is on the bawl.
So come ye, Jimmy Riley, with a later song to sing:
“When the fan is on the frolic and the wallop on the wing,
When the swing is on the spitter and the swipe is on the swat,
When the bum is on the bobble and he boots one round the lot,
When the break is on the bender and the squad is on the slump,
Or the flag is on the flutter and the brick is on the ump.”
Belay that ancient chatter of the “fodder, frost, and shock”
When the rooter’s on the rampage and the knocker’s on the knock;
For a later theme has drawn us where the echoes rise and fall—
When the bat is on the bingle and the bug is on the bawl.