Ah! They are coming still. It is filling up.
It is full. They come. There is almost an hour to go,
Yet all find room, the dribbles of black disappear
In the solid piles around that empty green,
We are packed and ready now. They might as well start,
But two-forty-five was their time, and it's only ten past,
And it's got to be lived through. I haven't a newspaper,
I wish I could steal that little parson's book.
I count three minutes slowly: they seem like an hour;
And then I change feet and loosen the brim of my hat,
And curse the crawling of time. Oh body, body!
Why did I order you here, to stand and feel tired,
To ache and ache when the time will never pass,
In this buzzing crowd, before all those laden housetops,
Around this turf, under the lid of the sky?
I fumble my watch again: it is two-twenty:
Twenty-five minutes to wait. One, two, three, four,
Five, six, seven, eight: what is the good of counting?
It won't be here any quicker, aching hips,
Bored brain, unquiet heart, you are doomed to wait.
Why did I make you come? We have been before,
Struggling with time, fatigued and dull and alone
In all this tumultuous, chattering, happy crowd
That never knew pain and never questions its acts...
Never questions? Do not deceive yourself.
Look at the faces around you, active and gay,
They are lined, there are brains behind them, breasts beneath them,
They have only escaped for an hour, and even now
Many, like you, have not escaped; and away
Across the field those faces ascending in tiers,
Each face is a story, a tragedy and a doubt;
And the teams where they wait, in the sacred place to the right,
Are bewildered souls, who have heard of and brooded on death,
And thought about God. But this is a football match;
And anyhow I don't feel equal to thinking,
And I'm certain the teams don't; they've something better to do.
It is half-past two, and, thank Heaven, a minute over.
We are all here now. The laggards have all booked seats
And stroll in lordly leisure along the front.
What a man! Six foot, silk hat, brown face, moustache!
What a fat complacent parson, snuggling down
In the chair there, among all his cackling ladies!
I have seen that youth before. My neighbour now
On my left shouts out to a college friend below us,
"Tommy! Hallo! Do you think we are going to beat 'em?"
My watch. Twenty-to-three. That lot went quickly;
Five minutes more is nothing; I'm lively now
And fit for a five-mile run. One, two, three, four...
It isn't worth bothering now, it's all but here,
Here, here; a rustle, a murmur, a ready silence,
A billowing cheer--why, here they come, running and passing,
The challenging team! By God, what magnificent fellows!
They have dropped the ball, they pause, they sweep onward again,
And so to the end. Here are the rest of them,
Swingingly up the field and back as they came,
With the cheers swelling and swelling. They disappear,
And out, like wind upon water, come their rivals,
With cheers swelling and swelling, to run and turn
And vanish; and now they are all come out together,
Two teams walking, touch-judges and referee.
And they all line up, dotted about like chessmen,
And the multitude holds its breath, and awaits the start.