A slight satire on a great game

A slight satire on a great game

The other day I met a man
I hadn’t seen since term began
He carried one arm in a sling
And walking, limped like anything
He wore a bandage round his head
One eye was black, the other red!

I hailed him (I am never rude)
With kindness and solicitude
I took his arm, lest he should fall
And propped him up against a wall
‘New tell me, Blank, to me relate
How you have got into this state

You might have been, I must be frank
Run over by a fighting tank!’
Brightly he smiled at my dismay
And sought my terrors to allay
‘Oh no, not at all - He gave a shrug By
Jove, I’ve had a game of rugby!

I must say I felt rather blue
And found the wall quite useful too
Faintly in words he scarce could catch
I asked if he had played a match
From the excitement of the lad
I rather gathered that he had

‘You missed it! Heavens! What a sin!
We had ‘em cold! We did ‘em in!’
He seized my wrist and - can you doubt it?
Began to tell me all about it.
‘It was like this’ he gave a roar
At half time there had been no score

In vain did the spectators cry
For nobody had scored a try
In vain did burst a cheering roll
When suddenly like a bolt from the blue
Our forward line went bursting through
And then - I know you will be vexed
I can’t remember what came next’

We thought it appropriate to blip this poem of Lorna's on a Six Nations weekend. The reference to term indicates that Lorna wrote it when an undergraduate at Cambridge.