A perpetual memory and other poems: By Henry Newbolt: With brief memoirs by Walter de la Mare and Ralph Furse and a portrait by Sir William Rothenstein |
 | I. |
Cricket
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| II. |
 | A perpetual memory |  |
24
Cricket
Our countrymen of England who winter here at ease
And send abroad their cricketers to fight across the seas—
They long to win the rubber, but inwardly they know
The game's the game: howe'er the luck may go.
And send abroad their cricketers to fight across the seas—
They long to win the rubber, but inwardly they know
The game's the game: howe'er the luck may go.
They know the English skipper may cry “a head! a head!”
And t'other like a Kangaroo may toss a tail instead,
But cricketers can smile away the force of Fortune's blow
For a man's a man: howe'er the luck may go.
And t'other like a Kangaroo may toss a tail instead,
But cricketers can smile away the force of Fortune's blow
For a man's a man: howe'er the luck may go.
To field upon a field of brick, to bowl beneath the blaze,
To bat and bat and bat and bat for days and days and days,
And then to lose—there's something wrong—but no! but no! but no!
The game's the game: howe'er the luck may go.
To bat and bat and bat and bat for days and days and days,
And then to lose—there's something wrong—but no! but no! but no!
The game's the game: howe'er the luck may go.
All men alive are cricketers, and stand to face the odds,
And some will trust in cunning tricks, and some in heathen gods:
But you my son were born and bred where what I say is so—
The game's the game: howe'er the luck may go.
And some will trust in cunning tricks, and some in heathen gods:
But you my son were born and bred where what I say is so—
The game's the game: howe'er the luck may go.
| A perpetual memory | |