The Wounded Cricketer (Not by Walt Whitman)

The Wounded Cricketer (1920)
by George Orwell
1839261The Wounded Cricketer1920George Orwell

The Wounded Cricketer (not by Walt Whitman.)

I am a wetbob who was trying to play cricket,
(not because I wanted to, but because I had to.)
Then I got hit in the eye by a ball,
So I lie on the grass here under a lime hue.
The grass looks nice, & so does the sky too.
The leaves look green, & there are such lots of them.
One, two, three, four.... seven, eight, nine, ten.
.... eighteen, nineteen... I can't count them.
The sky looks all blue & white & grey.
I can hear someone walking on the road over there.
His feet go up & down, up & down.
He treads in the puddles, & kicks the little pebbles
so that they rattle all over the place.
The ground underneath me is all rough & lumpy.
I can feel a little beetle running down my backbone.
And there's an ant on my ear.
I can see a rook up there; he's black all over.
I don't think I shall move. I feel nice & comfortable.

Oh joyful sound that met my ear!
As sweet as wedding bell.
That saved my mind in wave & wind,
And very month of Hell.

And, the weather Then fell the wind & shone the sun
abating, reachable At the kindly voice of man.
home safely. And I was home from flood & foam
Before fourth school began.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1950, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 73 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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