THE RUGGER MATCH

The walls make a funnel, packed full; the distant gate

Bars us from inaccessible light and peace.

Far over necks and ears and hats, I see

Policemen's helmets and cards hung on the ironwork:

“One shilling,” “No change given,” “Ticket-holders only”;

Oh Lord! What an awful crush! There are faces pale

And strained, and faces with animal grins advancing,

Stuck fast around mine. We move, we pause again

For an age, then a forward wave and another stop.

The pressure might squeeze one flat. Dig heels into ground

For this white and terrified woman whose male insists

Upon room to get back. Why did n't I come here at one?

Why come here at all? What strange little creatures we are,

Wedged and shoving under the contemptuous sky!

All things have stopped; the time will never go by;

We shall never get in!... Yet through the standing glass

The sand imperceptible drops, the inexorable laws

Of number work also here. They are passing and passing,

I can hear the tick of the turnstiles, tick, tick, tick,

A man, a woman, a man, shreds of the crowd,

A man, a man, till the vortex sucks me in

And, squeezed between strangers hurting the flat of my arms,

I am jetted forth, and pay my shilling, and pass

To freedom and space, and a cool for the matted brows.

But we cannot rest yet. Fast from the gates we issue,

Spread conelike out, a crowd of loosening tissue,

All jigging on, and making as we travel

“Pod, pod” of feet on earth, “chix, chix” on gravel.

Heads forward, striding eagerly, we keep

Round to the left in semi-circular sweep

By the back of a stand, excluded, noting the row

Of heads that speck the top, and, caverned below,

The raw, rough, timber back of the new-made mound.

Quicker! The place is swarming! Around, around

Till the edge is reached, and we see a patch of green,

Two masts with a crossbar, tapering, white and clean,

And confluent rows of people that merge and die

In a flutter of faces where the grand-stand blocks the sky.

We hurry along, past ragged files of faces,

Flushing and quick, peering for empty places.

I see one above me, I step and prise and climb,

And stand and turn and breathe and look at the time,

Survey the field, and note with superior glance,

The anxious bobbing fools who still advance.