Affixed to the original urn…..
When Ivo goes back with the urn, the urn;
Studds, Steel, Read and Tylcote return, return.
The welkin will ring loud
The great crowd will feel proud
Seeing Barlow & Bates with the urn, the urn
And the rest coming home with the urn
the urn, the urn, the urn
I’ve added an extra line in italics since [...]
Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child
By by, lully lullay
O sisters too, how may we do
for to preserve this day
this poor youngling for whom we do sing
by by, lully lullay
Herod the king in his raging
charged he hath this day
His men of might in his own sight
all young children to slay
That woe is me, poor child for [...]
When this Ashes Test is over
No more joy or misery
Let’s shake hands with erstwhile strangers
We’ll cherish present company
No more pints of polite clapping
No more shouting out for more
Shake hands with those beside you
They’re your neighbours from next door
Sung with great feeling and Welsh choralness
A modification of the lyrics of When This Lousy War is Over, from [...]
Ashes
To the victor the spoils
To losers, desolation
Dark doors darken dark doors
Shuts out welkin light
Puts wood in hole, shafts
Of night shadows the clacked
Clappered tun of celebration
Wrings, wrings the pain and din
Until the black tattoo stops beating
Bleak timpani within each ear’s dismal drum
Before blood dangles ruby red from each lobe
A mute sign that you are dead. [...]
The Ballad of Sir Andrew Strauss
ALBION sits in doleful frown,
Drinking most of the time:
‘O whair O whair will I get a steely skipper
To sail this ship o’ mine.’
Up and spoke a bearded miller
Sat at the ECB,
’Sir Andrew Strauss is the best skipper
To sail against history.’
Albion quills broadest honour
To sign it for Angleland,
And duly messages Sir Andrew,
Doff’d caps, [...]
Kneel to no one, not least those who cannot kneel,
Their bended knee arising from regal labours
In might and main to honour king and country
against the mightiest warriors from other lands
in fair contest and proud sacrifice
through surgery to fight and fight on. England’s
braw champion’s task is nearly done,
the ashes won and lost, and nearly once again [...]
Gone
in sixty nano-seconds
aim in mind before ball leaves bat
all done in one, out by yards,
victim dives after stumps splay
no recourse to redundant replay
dust stunned in shiv sharp speed
of broken glass stilled while braking
rods and cones alchemically fixed,
frozen forever in our retinas
suspended for life in vitreous humour
locked in basal memory forever
Katich twocks Trott.
Taken without owner’s consent,
No [...]
the crack is back.
out in the paddock steers sense
danger. A simple few step run
as short as Alan Davidson
but a bloody sight more quick,
left arm, right leg taut as a bow
held by Ursain Bolt at the gun,
no chance to reckon direction
before the whip comes over
Crack! Steers cower at its lash,
unable to go forward or back,
lost in the [...]
Our Freddie, the heart of our eleven
Hallowed be thy knees.
Give us your all from test to test
While inbetween giving them each a rest.
Cortisone injection those Australians
From openers to tail-enders
But do not do yourself a mischief
As you would do unto others.
We forgive you your pedalos
As you would forgive us ours.
All square at your final test
Lead us [...]
Headingley Carnegie
In the middle of a stand batsmen discard their creases
to parley twixt jousts, their yeomen chosen duties.
Shuffle pads, box, gloves, helmets, fear and bravery;
lean on pikestaffs to dismiss failure’s haunted taunting,
to discuss the matter at hand, state of play,
how to withhold each wicket whilst withering their enemies’
intent, who may snide cunning cussword cudgels in [...]
