IV

The pause is over. They part from each other, sift out;

The backs trot out to their stations, the forwards spread;

The captains beckon with hands, and the ball goes off

To volleys and answering volleys of harsher cheers;

For the top of the hill is past, we course to the close.

We've a three-point lead. Can we keep it? It is n't enough.

We have always heard their three-quarters were better than ours,

If they once get the ball. They have got it, he runs, he passes,

The centre dodges, is tackled, passes in time

To the other centre who goes like a bird to the left

And flings it out to the wing. The goal is open;

He has only to run as he can. No, the back is across,

He has missed him; he has him; they topple, head over heels,

And the ball bumps along into touch. They are stuck on our line;

Scrum after scrum, with those dangerous threes standing waiting,

Threat after threat forced back; a save, a return;

And the same thing over again, till the ball goes out

Almost unnoticed, and before we can see what is done,

That centre has kicked, he has thought of the four points,

The ball soars, slackens, keeps upright with effort,

Then floats between posts and falls, ignored, to the ground,

Its grandeur gone, while the touch-judge flaps his flag,

And the multitude becomes an enormous din

Which dies as the game resumes, and then rises again,

As battle of cry of triumph and counter-cry,

Defiant, like great waves surging against each other.

They work to the other corner, they stay there long;

They push and wheel, there are runs that come to nothing,

Till the noise wanes, and a curious silence comes.

They lead by a point, their crowd is sobered now,

Anxious still lest a sudden chance should come,

Or a sudden resource of power in mysterious foes

Which may dash them again from their new precarious peak,

Whilst we in our hearts are aware of the chilling touch

Of loss, of a fatal thing irrevocable,

Feel the time fly to the dreaded last wail of the whistle,

And see our team as desperate waves that dash

Against a wall of rock, to be scattered in spray.

Yet fervour comes back, for the players have no thought for the past

Except as a goad to new effort, not they will be chilled:

Fiercer and faster they fight, a grimness comes

Into shoving and running and tackling and handing off.

We are heeling the ball now cleanly, time after time

Our half picks it up and instantly jabs it away,

And the beautiful swift diagonal quarter-line

Tips it across for the wing to go like a stag

Till he's cornered and falls and the gate swings shut again.

Thirty fighting devils, ten thousand throats,

Thundering joy at each pass and tackle and punt,

Yet the consciousness grows that the time approaches the end,

The threat of conclusion grows like a spreading tree

And casts its shadow on all the anxious people,

And is fully known when they stop as a man's knocked out

And limps from the field with his arms round two comrades’ necks.

The gradual time seems to have suddenly leapt....

And all this while the unheeded winter sky

Has faded, and the air gone bluer and mistier.

The players, when they drift away to a corner

Distant from us, seem to have left our world.

We see the struggling forms, tangling and tumbling,

We hear the noise from the featureless mass around them,

But the dusk divides. Finality seems to have come.

Nothing can happen now. The attention drifts.

There's a pause; I become a separate thing again,

Almost forget the game, forget my neighbours,

And the noise fades in my ears to a dim rumour.

I watch the lines and colours of field and buildings,

So simple and soft and few in the vapoury air,

I am held by the brightening orange lights of the matches

Perpetually pricking the haze across the ground,

And the scene is tinged with a quiet melancholy,

The harmonious sadness of twilight on willowed waters,

Still avenues or harbours seen from the sea.

Yet a louder shout recalls me, I wake again,

Find there are two minutes left, and it's nearly over,

See a few weaklings already walking out,

Caring more to avoid a crush with the crowd

Than to give the last stroke to a ritual of courtesy

And a work of intangible art. But we're all getting ready,

Hope gone, and fear, except in the battling teams.

Regret... a quick movement of hazy forms,

Oh quiet, oh look, there is something happening,

Sudden one phantom form on the other wing

Emerges from nothingness, is singled out,

Curving in a long sweep like a flying gull,

Through the thick fog, swifter as borne by wind,

Swerves at the place where the corner-flag must be,

And runs, by Heaven he's over! and runs, and runs,

And our hearts leap, and our sticks go up in the air

And our hats whirl, and we lose ourselves in a yell

For a try behind the posts. We have beaten them!