Dozing in deck-chair’s gentle curve,
Through half-closed eyes I watched the cricket,
Flowing the sporting press would say
‘Perks bowled well on a perfect wicket’.
Fierce mid-day sun upon the ground;
Through heat-haze came the hollow sound
Of wary bat on ball, to pound
The devil out of it, quell its bound.
Sunburned fieldsmen, flannelled cream
Seemed, though urgent, scarce alive,
Swooped, like swallows of a dream,
On skimming fly, the hard-hit drive.
Beyond the score-box, through the trees
Gleamed Severn, blue and wide,
Where oarsmen ‘feathered’ with polished ease
And passed in gentle glide.
The back-cloth, setting off the setting,
Peter’s cathedral soared,
Rich of shade and fine of fretting
Like cut and painted board.
To the cathedral, close for shelter
Huddled houses, bent and slim,
Some tall, some short, all helter-skelter,
Like a sky-line drawn for Grimm.
This the fanciful engraver might
In his creative dream have seen,
Here, framed by summer’s glaring light,
Grey stone, majestic over green.
Closer, the bowler’s arm swept down,
The ball swung, swerved and darted,
Stump and bail flashed and flew ;
The batsman pensively departed.
Like rattle of dry seeds in pods
The warm crowd faintly clapped,
The boys who came to watch their gods,
The tired old men who napped.
The members sat in their strong deck-chairs
And sometimes glanced at the play,
They smoked, and talked of stocks and shares,
And the bar stayed open all day.
-"Cricket at Worcester", John Arlott
