Explore "The Appeal" by Norman Gale on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
My boy, bethink you ere you fling / Upon my heart a cloud of gloom. / Pause, pause a moment ere you bring / Your father to an early tomb / By playing Golf! For if you seek / To gravel your astounded sire, / Desert the wicket for the cleek, / Prefer the bagpipes to the lyre!
My boy, along your veins is poured / Heroic blood full fit to boast; / For annals of the scoring-board / Have made our name a cricket Toast. / If now in pride or pique you choose / To make this scandalous default, / How many bygone Cricket Blues / Will issue, raging, from their vault!
My boy, the game that's big and bright, / The game that stands all games above, / And towers to such a glorious height, / Deserves the summit of your love! / Is this a time for dapper spats, / When foes arrive to test our worth? / Beg pardon of your gloves and bats, / And play the kingliest game on earth!