Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems including a Reprint of Echoes from Theocritus: By Wilfred Austin Gill: With a Critical Estimate of the Sonnets by the late John Addington Symonds |
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BEFORE THE RACE |
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 | Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems |  |
109
XXIX
BEFORE THE RACE
The impatient starter waxeth saturnine.
“Is the bell cracked?” he cries. They make it sound:
And six tall lads break through the standers-round.
I watch with Mary while they form in line;
White-jersey'd all, but each with some small sign,
A broidered badge or shield with painted ground,
And one with crimson kerchief sash-wise bound;
I think we know that token, neighbour mine.
Willie, they call you best of nimble wights;
Yet brutal Fate shall whelm in slippery ways
Two soles at least. Will it be you she spites?
Ah well! 'Tis not so much to win the bays.
Uncrowned or crowned, the struggle still delights;
It is the effort, not the palm, we praise.
| Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems | |