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Verse and Worse
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In the popular art of the day,
And this is the reason that Archibald Ames
Ranks high among other familiar names
As a very well-known R.A.
THE BALLAD OF PING-PONG
(After Swinburne)
The murmurous moments of May-time,
What bountiful blessings they bring!
As dew to the dawn of the day-time,
Suspicions of Summer to Spring!
Let others imagine the time light,
With maidens or books on their knee,
Or live in the languorous limelight
That tinges the trunk of the Tree.
Let the timorous turn to their tennis,
Or the bowls to which bumpkins belong,
But the thing for grown women and men is
The pastime of ping and of pong.
The game of the glorious glamour!
The feeling to fight till you fall!
The hurricane hail and the hammer!
The batter and bruise of the ball!
The glory of getting behind it!
The brief but bewildering bliss!
The fear of the failure to find it!
The madness at making a miss!
The sound of the sphere as you smack it,
Derisive, decisive, divine!
The riotous rush of your racket,
To mix and to mingle with mine!
The diadem dear to the King is,
How sweet to the singer his song;
To me so the plea of the ping is,
And the passionate plaint of the pong.
I live for it, love for it, like it;
Delight of my dearest of dreams!
To stand and to strive and to strike it, —
So certain, so simple it seems!
Then give me the game of the gay time,
The ball on its wandering wing,
The pastime for night or for day-time,
The Pong, not to mention the Ping!
THE PESSIMIST
(After Maeterlinck)
Life's bed is full of crumbs and rice,
No roses float on my lagoon;
There are no fingers, white and nice,
To rub my head with scented ice,
Or feed me with a spoon.
I think of all the days gone by,
Replete with black and blue regret;
No comets light my glaucous sky,
My tears are hardly ever dry,
I never can forget!
I see the yellow dog, Desire,
That strains against the lead of Hope,
With lilac eyes and lips of fire,
As all in vain he strives to tire
The hand that holds the rope.
I see the kisses of the past,
Like lambkins dying in the snow,
The honeymoon that did not last,
The tinted youth that flew so fast,
And all this vale of woe.
So, raising high my raucous cry,
I ask (and Fates no answer give),
Why am I pre-ordained to die?
O cruel Fortune, tell me, why
Am I allowed to live?
THE PLACE WHERE THE OLD CLEEK BROKE
(After Whyte-Melville)
Life is hollow to the golfer, of however high his rank,
If the dock-leaf and the nettle grow too free,
If a bramble bar his progress, if he's bunkered by a bank,
If his golf-ball jerks and wobbles off the tee.
There's a ditch I never pass, full of stones and broken glass,
And I'd sooner lift my ball and count a stroke,
For the tears my vision blot when I see the fatal spot,
'Tis the place where my old cleek broke.
And this is the reason that Archibald Ames
Ranks high among other familiar names
As a very well-known R.A.
THE BALLAD OF PING-PONG
(After Swinburne)
The murmurous moments of May-time,
What bountiful blessings they bring!
As dew to the dawn of the day-time,
Suspicions of Summer to Spring!
Let others imagine the time light,
With maidens or books on their knee,
Or live in the languorous limelight
That tinges the trunk of the Tree.
Let the timorous turn to their tennis,
Or the bowls to which bumpkins belong,
But the thing for grown women and men is
The pastime of ping and of pong.
The game of the glorious glamour!
The feeling to fight till you fall!
The hurricane hail and the hammer!
The batter and bruise of the ball!
The glory of getting behind it!
The brief but bewildering bliss!
The fear of the failure to find it!
The madness at making a miss!
The sound of the sphere as you smack it,
Derisive, decisive, divine!
The riotous rush of your racket,
To mix and to mingle with mine!
The diadem dear to the King is,
How sweet to the singer his song;
To me so the plea of the ping is,
And the passionate plaint of the pong.
I live for it, love for it, like it;
Delight of my dearest of dreams!
To stand and to strive and to strike it, —
So certain, so simple it seems!
Then give me the game of the gay time,
The ball on its wandering wing,
The pastime for night or for day-time,
The Pong, not to mention the Ping!
THE PESSIMIST
(After Maeterlinck)
Life's bed is full of crumbs and rice,
No roses float on my lagoon;
There are no fingers, white and nice,
To rub my head with scented ice,
Or feed me with a spoon.
I think of all the days gone by,
Replete with black and blue regret;
No comets light my glaucous sky,
My tears are hardly ever dry,
I never can forget!
I see the yellow dog, Desire,
That strains against the lead of Hope,
With lilac eyes and lips of fire,
As all in vain he strives to tire
The hand that holds the rope.
I see the kisses of the past,
Like lambkins dying in the snow,
The honeymoon that did not last,
The tinted youth that flew so fast,
And all this vale of woe.
So, raising high my raucous cry,
I ask (and Fates no answer give),
Why am I pre-ordained to die?
O cruel Fortune, tell me, why
Am I allowed to live?
THE PLACE WHERE THE OLD CLEEK BROKE
(After Whyte-Melville)
Life is hollow to the golfer, of however high his rank,
If the dock-leaf and the nettle grow too free,
If a bramble bar his progress, if he's bunkered by a bank,
If his golf-ball jerks and wobbles off the tee.
There's a ditch I never pass, full of stones and broken glass,
And I'd sooner lift my ball and count a stroke,
For the tears my vision blot when I see the fatal spot,
'Tis the place where my old cleek broke.
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