[SOC] poetry corner

[Lloyd Lachow]

The Cricketers of Flanders

The first to climb the parapet 
With the "cricket balls" in either hand; 
The first to vanish in the smoke 
Of God-forsaken No Man's Land; 
First at the wire and soonest through, 
First at those red-mouthed hounds of hell, 
The Maxims, and the first to fall, -- 
They do their bit and do it well. 

Full sixty yards I've seen them throw 
With all that nicety of aim 
They learned on British cricket-fields. 
Ah, bombing is a Briton's game! 
Shell-hole to shell-hole, trench to trench, 
"Lobbing them over" with an eye 
As true as though it were a game 
And friends were having tea close by. 

Pull down some art-offending thing 
Of carven stone, and in its stead 
Let splendid bronze commemorate 
These men, the living and the dead. 
No figure of heroic size, 
Towering skyward like a god; 
But just a lad who might have stepped 
>From any British bombing squad. 

His shrapnel helmet set atilt, 
His bombing waistcoat sagging low, 
His rifle slung across his back: 
Poised in the very act to throw. 
And let some graven legend tell 
Of those weird battles in the West 
Wherein he put old skill to use, 
And played old games with sterner zest. 

Thus should he stand, reminding those 
In less-believing days, perchance, 
How Britain's fighting cricketers 
Helped bomb the Germans out of France. 
And other eyes than ours would see; 
And other hearts than ours would thrill; 
And others say, as we have said: 
"A sportsman and a soldier still!" 
  
 James Norman Hall
May, 1915  



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