Slower: geological, the shift of leather against leather. This way faults are formed, continents are realigned forever. Slower: keeper leans, ball will never come, the tie cannot be lost, victory songs are stuck on note one, hum, on om. This frame is now pitch-perfect: ball rests on boot like a hawk called to glove, and what this says about impact. Munich Olympics there should have been an Irish gold medal to go with Ronnie's from Melbourne in , my birth-year, give or take four. The sport?
These decimal coins were new in, and each wore a bird in a Celtic knot design, stolen from the Book of Kells. Zoom in to UCD in , the testing ground. Those old Georgian buildings on Earlsfort Tce.
The pride of the Engineering Faculty at battle in private, till a university-wide championship was flagged up all over the sprawling campus, with entries coming in from Classics, English, Law, you name it, all of them plonkers, using plastic combs, credit cards, nailfiles, sawnoff rulers.
They entered like non-league clubs in the FA Cup and unlike those, none of them prospered. Three of the players were Engineering, one Architecture, all men, the bulk of the fans women.
One match ended goalless, went to penalties, the other ended , and that was me in the final where I met my longhaired, moustachioed friend who bet he'd beat me.
Some chance! I scored early, then sat back, catenaccio , warding off all attacks till I scored again, with a viciously spinning.
Hoisted up, and carried, with cheers, to the pub where a letter was drafted to the Irish Olympic Committee, insisting it get push-penny added to the Games so Ireland would win another gold. As Google and History show, it didn't happen but I'm still here, if in need of practice, I have two mad, green shirts and green shoes, draughtsman's boards must be cheap on eBay, and I think the Mexicans still make steel combs. Who would imagine a cricket ground Had ever existed here, Folded into a farm on the downland pasture, Lapping the edge of the oakwood And the buttercup-quilted rides?
For the Toll is returned to plough After a century of combat, Sown to a sea of blue-green waves Beneath which it lies drowned. And now, Stick nor stone of the old pavilion, Hook nor slat of the scoreboard left: Never an echo of tumbling children, Tattle of Edwardians, Knocking their pipes out on the rough deal benches.
Foaming hawthorn and rhododendron Have colonised the field-edge, spreading Through copper beech and flowering chestnut And adventitious saplings. Where Is the camaraderie Of the side I played for so often here:. Their thunderous blows and heroical overs, The days that flowed with sun and wind: Stalemates in dismal drizzle, And the finger of death uplifted in the dusk?
I have failed to raise them By staring out at the level meadow As if I were Cadmus who had sown The dragon's teeth and awaited His armed men springing from the earth. But I did untangle my way Through the canopied darkness of what had been The boundary. Among the laurel bushes And snagging goose-grass and rabbit holes, I found what I'd forgotten, hidden Under a wide oak.
For this. Was what they could not lightly move In the rhythm of abandonment: Here was the deep ground-bass and the solemn Measure of constancy, foundry-born, That had lasted so long. And I laid My arms across the surface, feeling Under the rust and dust and pollen, The summers that never seemed to move And all the years gone by to the creak of iron. Wimbledon is over and England aren't in the World Cup final tomorrow, but there's still much to cheer.
Taking the baton from poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, leading poets celebrate sport from school playing fields to international stadiums. Cricket match in Surrey. And though we may have startled at the starting pistol, with its jolt of explosive fired by Sting , Usain Bolt we are not, by a long shot.
Wired to our iPods, we are your average, middle-aged bipeds: half-trained, stiff-hinged, pegging up the course, as likely overtaken by a pantomime horse as a Lady Gaga. In the name of a small but worthy charity, we plod on, to the finish and vitality, fleeing those intimations of mortality.
Gillian Clarke Pheidippedes' Daughter for Catrin Long silver girl who slipped easy and early from the womb's waters, whose child-breath was a bird in a cage, the inhaler in her fist her amulet, grew tall, beautiful, caught her breath, outran the hound, the hare, the myth, the otter, salmon, swallow, hawk, the river, the road, the track. Eighteen small cups punched into the bristling grass, eighteen flags limp on their sticks in the silent, windless dark, but in the bedroom with its luminous clock and propped-open windows, I got only as far as the seventh hole before I drifted easily away — the difficult seventh, "The Tester" they called it, where, just as on the earlier holes, I tapped in, dreamily, for birdie.
How could a tennis champion Make friends with me? Theo Dorgan All Ireland Final for Tom Humphries We stand for the anthem, buoyant and tribal, heart beating with heart, our colours brave, our faces turned towards the uncertain sun. When I pull it on it hangs on my back like a shroud, or a poisoned jerkin from Grimm seeping its curse onto my skin, the worst tattoo. I shower and shave before I shrug on the shirt, smell like a dream; but the shirt sours my scent with the sweat and stink of fear.
I've wanted to sport the shirt since I was a kid, but now when I do it makes me sick, weak, paranoid. All night above the team hotel, the moon is the ball in a penalty kick. Tens of thousands of fierce stars are booing me. A screech owl is the referee. The wind's a crowd, forty years long, bawling a filthy song about my Wag.
Don't cry, I said, at the end of the day you'll be back on K a week and playing for City. Did you see her shoes? Lavinia Greenlaw Kata A dance between movement and space, between image and imperative. Why else can we dream of flying, unless we were made for this? Paul Henry Boy Running for Ioan The canal tilts him back and fore like a boat in a toy pen or the bubble in a spirit-level that never quite finds its middle.
There are worse ways to grow tall under the rustling sun and rain between bridges 14 and 21 to outlive an owl, a drake, a hawk where no two leaves blow the same way and pumpkin lanterns moor for the night. A sparse lee in the woods jolts you awake, out of the hammered dream of the run; it writhes with the scent of rain, aches under a blanket of wild garlic, sun.
Resources for Teachers. Academy of American Poets. American Poets Magazine. Poems Find and share the perfect poems. Play the Game. Twenty-two stalwarts in stripes and shorts Kicking a ball along, Set in a square of leather-lunged sports Twenty-two thousand strong, Some of them shabby, some of them spruce, Savagely clamorous all, Hurling endearments, advice or abuse, At the muscular boys on the ball. To-day there are worthier things to do.
Englishmen, play the game! A truce to the League, a truce to the Cup, Get to work with a gun. This poem is in the public domain. Lights Out!
Newbolt came to dislike his most famous poem Vitai Lampada ; during a speaking tour of Canada he was constantly called upon to recite the poem: "it's a kind of Frankenstein's Monster that I created thirty years ago," he complained. The poem retained its popularity in Canada long after it fell out of favour in Britain. Shortly after war was declared Newbolt, a friend and contemporary of Sir Douglas Haig , was recruited by the head of Britain's War Propaganda Bureau WPB , Charles Masterman , to help shape and maintain public opinion in favour of the war effort.
Newbolt, who was appointed controller of telecommunications during the war, was knighted in The Companion of Honour followed in Time is the great healer. There are things in life that are difficult to understand, less to accept. May you be blessed with long life. This blind devotion to god king and country is not only outdated but dangerous. Poems are the property of their respective owners.
All information has been reproduced here for educational and informational purposes to benefit site visitors, and is provided at no charge Next Poem. Previous Poem. Sir Henry Newbolt.
Friday, January 3, Download image of this poem. Report this poem. This poem has not been translated into any other language yet. I would like to translate this poem.
Malcolm Baird 22 December
0コメント