See, now the ball is started; See now they run apace; How pluckily the little chaps Those Beacon giants face! And in the gutters thickest Were given hacks and blows And from the gutters loudest The cry of “Play up” rose, And louder still and louder Rose from the muddy field The shouts and yells of Captains both “Shove up and do not yield.” The panting forwards dashing Like madmen, o’er the plain, Mid joyous shouts of triumph And screeching yells of pain, For underneath a gutter Flaccus of Sevenoaks lay: Better had he been learning Greek grammar all that day. Mamilias saw him struggling And tossed his blue black crest And toward the brave Valerius Through the thick battle pressed. Valerius smote Mamilias So fiercely on the head That the great Lord of Sevenoaks Rolled over well nigh dead. Mamilias smote Lars Porsena With a good aim and true Just where the neck and shoulder join And made him black and blue, Here brave Amutius Elva Fell swooning to the ground, And a thick wall of players Encompassed him around. Sempronius Atratinus Would fain have cleared a space But deaf’ning yells and shrieks and shouts Were levelled at his face. While some stood round and shouted “Brave Sextus don’t give in,” As many others roared as loud “By Jove, my man will win.” Then out spake good Valerius, The Captain of the team, “To all that stand upon this field “This must rare plucky seem, “But how can a man die better “(If he’s to die at all) “Than battered in and bashed and squashed “And flattened in a maul?” Sempronius Atratinus And Decius Mus were hoarse With yelling “Boys get off the ball “It’s Sextus’s of course.” And oh! the thundering clamour When Sextus faintly rose, Black in the face and panting fast Must bring this to a close. Gay are the Cricket Kalends, The Racing Nones are gay, But the Football Ides, of all the pride, Shall be the whitest day, While flows our Medway river, While stands our One Tree Hill, The Ides of proud November Shall have such honour still. _The Tonbridgian._ December, 1878. ―――― A PROPHECY OF CAPERS. (_A Lay of an Ancient Roamer._) Ho! grooms, fling forth the sawdust Ho! shed it on the tan, For round the show The _troupe_ must to In glittering caravan; In long and grand procession Parading, one and all Belonging to the Circus At the Agricultural Hall.