Fill them with gladness and might, good
Sun,

Touch them with glory, O Brother of
mine,

Brother of mine,

Brother of mine!

We are the lords of them, Brother and
Mate,

I but a little ball, thou but a Great!

Give me the bowler whose fingers embracing me Tingle and throb with the joy of the game, One who can laugh at a smack to the boundary, Single of purpose and steady of aim.

That is the man for me: striving in sympathy,
Ours is a fellowship sure to prevail.

Willow must fall in the end to the ball-
See, like a tiger I leap for the bail.

Give me the fieldsman whose eyes never stray

from me,

Eager to clutch me, a roebuck in pace : Perish the unalert, perish the "buttery," Perish the laggard I strip in the race. Grand is the ecstasy soaring triumphantly, Holding the gaze of the meadow is grand, Grandest of all to the soul of the ball

Is the finishing grip of the honest brown

hand.

Give me the batsman who squanders his force

$ on me,

Crowding the strength of his soul in a stroke; Perish the muff and the little tin Shrewsbury, Meanly contented to potter and poke.

He who would pleasure me, he must do doughtily,

--

Bruises and buffetings stir me like wine. Giants, come all, do your worst with the ball, Sooner or later you 're mine, sirs, you 're mine.

Pour on us torrents of light, good Sun,
Shine in the hearts of my cricketers,
shine;

Fill them with gladness and might, good
Sun,

Touch them with glory, O Brother of
mine,

Brother of mine,

Brother of mine!

We are the lords of them, Brother and
Mate,

I but a little ball, thou but a Great!

EDWARD Verrall Lucas.

GOLF.

WHY Golf is Art and Art is Golf we have not

far to seek

So much depends upon the lie, so much upon

the cleek.

RUDYARD KIPLING.

ATHLETIC ODE.

I HEAR a rumour and a shout,

A louder heart-throb pulses in the air.
Fling, Muse, thy lattice open, and beware
To keep the morning out.
Beckon into the chamber of thy care
The bird of healing wing

That trilleth there

Blithe happy passion of the strong and fair.
Their wild heart singeth. Do thou also sing.
How vain, how vain

The feeble croaking of a reasoning tongue
That heals no pain

And prompts no bright deed worthy to be sung!
Too soon cold earth

Refuses flowers. Oh, greet their lovely birth!
Too soon dull death

Quiets the heaving of our doubtful breath.
Deem not its worth

Too high for honouring mirth;

Sing while the lyre is strung,

And let the heart beat, while the heart is young.

When the dank earth begins to thaw and yield
The early clover, didst thou never pass

Some balmy noon from field to sunny field
And press thy feet against the tufted grass?
So hadst thou seen

A spring palæstra on the tender green.
Here a tall stripling, with a woman's face,

Draws the spiked sandal on his upturned heel,
Sure-footed for the race;

Another hurls the quoit of heavy steel
And glories to be strong;

While yet another, lightest of the throng,
Crouching on tiptoe for the sudden bound,
Flies o'er the level race-course, like the hound,
And soon is lost afar ;

Another jumps the bar,

For some god taught him easily to spring,
The legs drawn under, as a bird takes wing,
Till, tempting fortune farther than is meet,
At last he fails, and fails, and vainly tries,
And blushing, and ashamed to lift his eyes,
Shakes the light earth from his feet.
Him friendly plaudits greet

And pleasing to the unaccustomed ear.
Come then afield, come with the sporting year
And watch the youth at play,

For gentle is the strengthening sun, and sweet
The soul of boyhood and the breath of May.

And with the milder ray

Of the declining sun, when sky and shore,
In purple dressed and misty silver-grey,
Hang curtains round the day,

Come list the beating of the plashing oar,
For grief in rhythmic labour glides away.

The glancing blades make circles where they → dip,

Now flash and drip

Cool wind-blown drops into the glassy river,

Now sink and cleave,

While the lithe rowers heave

And feel the boat beneath them leap and quiver.
The supple oars in time,

Shattering the mirror of the rippled water,
Fly, fly as poets climb,

Borne by the pliant promise of their rhyme,
Or as bewitched by Nereus' loveliest daughter
The painted dolphins, following along,
Leap to the measure of her liquid song.

But the blasts of late October,
Tempering summer's paling grief
With a russet glow and sober,

Bring of these sports the latest and the chief. Then bursts the flame from many a smouldering ember,

And many an ardent boy

Woos harsher pleasures sweeter to remember,
Hugged with a sterner and a tenser joy.
Look where the rivals come:

Each little phalanx on its chosen ground
Strains for the sudden shock, and all around
The multitude is dumb.

Come, watch the stubborn fight
And doubtful, in the sight

Of wide-eyed beauty and unstinted love.
Ay, the wise gods above,

Attentive to this hot and generous fray,
Smile on its fortunes and its end prepare,
For play is also life, and far from care
Their own glad life is play.