Harry Graham (29)

Sonntag ist Harry-Graham-Tag! Heute gibt es Tischtennisverse aus »Verse and Worse«:

Harry Graham: 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!