A Ballade of Mourning
1878
[_]
(The Australians at Lord's)
The glories of the ball and bat,
Alas! are unsubstantial things;
Fate lays the stoutest wicket flat,
Nor spares the game's anointed kings.
Look on these ‘duck's-eggs’—ranged in strings;
Hark to that shout—a losing cheer!
Ah me! (the question soothes and stings)
Where are the scores of yester-year?
I'll wear a willow round my hat
This day of days for many springs,
And sitting where the patriarch sat,
Spend the sad hours in murmurings
That fortune should have spread her wings
And sought the lower hemisphere,
Singing, as melancholy sings,
‘Where are the scores of yester-year?’
The stump of Grace is taken—pat!
Vain is the sceptre Hornby swings;
Webbe, Ridley, Hearne—on this and that
The bowlers' craft destruction brings.
Fatal and strange, like stones from slings,
Are Spofforth's ‘fasts’, and Boyle's. Oh, dear!
Lord's with the lamentation sings,
‘Where are the scores of yester-year?’
Envoy
Prince, though I know how fortune flings
Her darts, and how they disappear,
This thought my bosom racks and wrings—
Where are the scores of yester-year?
