Cricket Witness No 6 - His Captain's Hand on His Shoulder Smote

8 Introduction; It’s runs that count by way of prelude: Vitai Lampada (The Lamp of Life) There’s a deathly hush in the Close tonight - Ten to make and the match to win - A bumping pitch and a blinding light, An hour to play and the last man in. And it’s not for the sake of a ribboned coat Or the selfish hope of a season’s fame, But his Captain’s hand on his shoulder smote - ‘Play up! Play up! And play the game!’ The sand of the desert is sodden red - Red with the blood of a square that broke - The Gattling jammed and the colonel dead, And the regiment blind with the dust and smoke. The river of death has brimmed his banks, And England’s far, and Honour a name, But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks - ‘Play Up! Play Up! And play the game!’ This is the word that year by year, While in her place the school is set, Every one of her sons must hear, And none that hears it dares forget. This they all with a joyful mind Bear through life like a torch in flame, And falling, fling to the host behind ‘Play Up! Play Up! And play the game!’ In three sparse, well-crafted verses Sir Henry Newbolt succinctly interprets the message of schoolboy literature. This was composed in 1892, just at the peak of that hundred year period in which school-based stories saturated the market. He lived from 1862 to 1938, bestriding much of the era in question, and he was educated at Clifton – it is Clifton’s Close which is celebrated in the poem – and Oxford University. A lawyer, he turned successfully to writing in his thirties. Douglas, later Earl Haig, of World War One note, was in the same year as Newbolt at Clifton College. They remained close friends and Newbolt obviously saw in Haig