With collars be they yok’d to prove the arm at length,
Like bulls set head to head, with meer deliver strength;
Or by the girdles graspt, they practise with the hip,
The[66] forward, backward, falx, the mar, the turn, the trip,
When stript into their shirts, each other they invade
Within a spacious ring, by the beholders made,
According to the law. Or when the ball to throw,
And drive it to the goal, in squadrons forth they go;
And to avoid the troops their forces that fore-lay,
Through dikes and rivers make, in this robustious play;