LXXXIX
Rugby Football
(Written on receiving the Football Match List from Ilkley Grammar School)
YOU came by last night's mail
To my strange little mud-built house,
At a time when the blues were on my trail
And I'd little to do but grouse.
For the world seemed a-swim with ooze,
With everything going wrong,
And though I knew that we couldn't lose,
Yet the end of it all seemed long.
The sandbag bed felt hard,
And exceedingly cold the rain,
But you sang to me, little green card,
And gave me courage again;
For at sight of the old green back
And the dear familiar crest,
I was off and away on memory's track,
Where Rumbold's Moor stands bleak and black
208
