MORE CRICKET SONGS
by Norman Gale
Author of "Cricket Songs" "Barty's Star" "A Country Muse" and other works.
1905
DEAR JOHN DENTON,
Not long ago you reminded me that once, when you were a boy and I was a schoolmaster, I was angry with you because you pouted all through a lesson in arithmetic. Let bygones be bygones, and accept as a proof of my continuing friendship the dedication of this little volume, in which there are no other sums than those of the Telegraph.
Most sincerely yours,
NORMAN GALE.
Here's to the lad with his useful Fifteen,
Here's to the Bowler that's thrifty,
Here's to the Bat who is Lord of the Green
With his frequent and thundering Fifty!
For their courtesy in allowing him to reprint some of these songs the Author thanks the Editor of The Westminster Gazette, Prince Ranjitsinhji, Mr. James Bowden, the Editor of The Country, and the Editor of The Sun.
OILING.
(A Song In and Out of Season.)
Excuse me, Sweetheart, if I smear,
With wisdom learnt from ancient teachers,
Now winter time once more is here,
This grease upon your lengthy features!
Behaving thus, your loyal friend
No whit encourages deception:
Believe me, Fairest, in the end
This oil will better your complexion.
Fairest, believe!
Did you imagine in the bag
To sleep the sleep of Rip Van Winkle,
Removed from sunshine's golden flag
And duller daylight's smallest twinkle?
Well have you earned your rest; but yet,
Although disturbance seem uncivil,
Unless your cheeks and chin be wet
With oil, your beauteousness will shrivel.
Rarest, believe!
Absorb, that, when for our delight
The May unpacks its lovely blossom,
With beaming face, with shoulders bright
You leave the bag's congenial bosom.
Then shall the Lover and his Lass
Walk out toward the pitch together,
And, glorying in the shaven grass,
Tackle, with mutual faith, the leather.
Dearest, absorb!
THE GOLDEN GAME.
If ever there was a Golden Game
To brace the nerves, to cure repining,
To put the Dumps to flight and shame,
It's Cricket when the sun is shining!
Gentlemen, toss the foolscap by,
Gentlemen, change from books to leather!
Breathe your fill of the breeze from the hill,
Thanking Bliss for the great blue weather.
If ever there was a bag could beat
The box possessed by Miss Pandora,
'Tis that in which there cuddle neat
The tools to shape the flying Fourer.
Gentlemen, watch the purple ball!
Gentlemen, keep your wits in tether!
Take your joy with the heart of a boy
Under the dome of the big blue weather.
If ever I feel my veins abound
With zealous blood more fit for Twenty,
'Tis when upon the shaven ground
Fair Fortune gives me runs in plenty.
Gentlemen all, while sinews last,
Bat ye, bowl ye, friends together!
Play the play till the end of your day,
Mellowest mates in the big blue weather!
But ever the ancient tale is told,
And History (the jade!) repeated:
By Time, who's never over-bowled,
At last we find ourselves defeated.
Gentlemen all, though stiff we be,
Youth comes along in finest feather,
Just as keen as we all have been
Out on the turf in the great blue weather!
There's ever the deathless solace left—
To gaze at younger heroes smiting,
Of neither grit nor hope bereft,
Up to the end for victory fighting.
Gentlemen all, we taste delight,
Banished now from the stream and heather,
Calm and cool on an old camp-stool,
Watching the game in the big blue weather!
THE FEMALE BOY.
If cursed by a son who declined to play cricket,
(Supposing him sound and sufficient in thews,)
I'd larrup him well with the third of a wicket,
Selecting safe parts of his body to bruise.
In his mind such an urchin King Solomon had
When he said, Spare the stump, and you bungle the lad!
For what in the world is the use of a creature
All flabbily bent on avoiding the Pitch?
Who wanders about, with a sob in each feature,
Devising a headache, inventing a stitch?
There surely would be a quick end to my joy
If possessed of that monster—the feminine boy!—
The feminine boy who declines upon croquet,
Or halma, or spillikins (horrible sport!),
Or any amusement that's female and pokey,
And flatly objects to behave as he ought!
I know him of old. He is lazy and fat,
Instead of this Thing, fit for punishment drastic,
Give, Fortune, a son who is nimble and keen;
A bright-hearted sample of human elastic,
As fast as an antelope, supple and clean;
Far other than he in whose dimples there lodge
Significant signs of inordinate stodge.
Ay, give me the lad who is eager and chubby,
A Stoddart in little, a hero in bud;
Who'd think it a positive crime to grow tubby,
And dreams half the night he's a Steel or a Studd!
There's the youth for my fancy, all youngsters above—
The boy for my handshake, the lad for my love!
THE DARK BOWLER.
I know that Bowler, dark and lean,
Who holds his tongue, and pegs away,
And never fails to come up keen,
However hard and straight I play.
Spinning and living, from his hand
The leather, full of venom, leaps;
How nicely are his changes planned,
And what a lovely length he keeps!
Because he pulls his brim so low,
However earnestly one tries
One never sees the darkling glow,
That must be nimble in his eyes.
The fellow's judgment never nods,
His watchful spirit never sleeps.
There was a clinking ball! Ye gods,
Why, what a splendid length he keeps!
At times he bowls an awkward ball
That in the queerest manner swerves,
And this delivery of them all
Takes most elastic from my nerves:
It comes, and all along my spine
A sense of desolation creeps;
Till now the mastery is mine,
But—what a killing length he keeps!
That nearly passed me! That again
Miraculously missed the bails!
Too good a sportsman to complain,
He never flags, he never stales.
Small wonder if his varied skill
So fine a harvest daily reaps,
For how he marries wit and will!
And what a deadly length he keeps!
UNCLE BOB INDIGNANT.
("Flannelled fools at the wicket")
Come, poke the fire, pull round the screen,
And fill me up a glass of grog
Before I tell of matches seen
And heroes of the mighty slog!
While hussies play near mistletoe
The game of kiss-me-if-you-dare,
I'll dig for you in memory's snow,
And where my eager spade shall go
Uncover bliss for you to share,
My Boys!
As sloppiness our sport bereaves
Of what was once a glorious zest,
And female men are thick as thieves,
With croquet, ping-pong, and the rest,
Prophetic eyes discern the shame
Shall humble England in the dust;
And in their graves our sires shall flame
With scorn to know the Nation's game
Cat's-cradle; Cricket gone to rust,
My Lads
Ah, for a winged and wounding pen,
In vigour dipped, to pierce the age
When girls are athletes, not the men,
And toughness dwindles from the stage!—
When purblind poet cannot see
That in the games he wishes barred,
Eager, and hungry to be free
As when it triumphed on the sea,
The Viking spirit battles hard,
My Sons!
If you have need of flabbier times,
Colensos, Stormbergs, Spion Kops,
Tell cricketers to take to rhymes,
And smash at once the cross-bar props.
When sportsmen, tied to sport, refuse
To offer lead the loyal breast,
To tramp for miles in bloody shoes,
To smirch their souls, to crack their thews,
Then let the poet rail his best,
My Hearts!
Aye, if our social state be planned
Devoid of giant games of ball,
Macaulay's visitor will stand
The earlier on the crumbled wall.
Nerve, daring, sprightliness, and pluck
Improve by noble exercise;
The wish to soar above the ruck,
The power to laugh at dirty luck
And face defeat with sparkling eyes,
My Braves!
By George, there goes the supper-bell!
And yet your duffing Uncle Bob
Has never told you what befell
When all his team got out for blob.
So much for bad poetic gas
That gets my ancient dander up!
Well, to the banquet! What is crass
Shall deeply drown in radiant Bass
While we as Vikings greatly sup,
My Hearts!
THE TUTOR'S LAMENT.
I refuse to find attractions
In the ancient Roman native;
I am sick to death of fractions,
And of verbs that take the dative:
It is mine to be recorder
Of a boy's congested brain, Sir,
With the pitch in perfect order
And the weather like champagne, Sir!
I—the sport of conjugations—
I am cooped up as a lodger
Where I serve out mental rations
To a proudly backward dodger.
While the two of us are dreaming
Of the canvas and the creases,
Close we sit together, scheming
How to pull an ode to pieces.
Even now in London's gabble
Memory's magic tricks the senses!
Plain I hear the streamlet babble,
Smell the tar on country fences:
Down the road Miss Grey from Marlett
Skirts the fox-frequented thicket,
In her belt a rose of scarlet,
In her eyes the love of cricket.
There's my mother with her ponies
Underneath Sir Toby's beeches,
Pulling up to share with cronies
News of grapes and plums and peaches:
Many a gaffer stops to fumble
At his forelock as she passes,
While the children cease to tumble
Frocks and blouses in the grasses.
Though my body stays with duty
Here to work a sum or rider,
Mother's magnet and her beauty
Draw my soul to sit beside her!
Ah, what luck if I were able
There to play once more in flannels,
Free from all this littered table,
Virgil's farmyard, Ovid's annals!
There's a loop of leather handle
Peeping underneath the sofa!
Is tuition worth the candle
When the conscience turns a loafer?
'Tis the rich and backward Boarder
Proves indeed the Tutor's bane, Sir,
When the turf's in ripping order
And the weather like champagne, Sir!