Words Worth Noting - March 18, 2025

“There’s a breathless hush in the Close to-night —/ Ten to make and the match to win —/ A bumping pitch and a blinding light,/ An hour to play and the last man in./ And it’s not for the sake of a ribboned coat,/ Or the selfish hope of a season’s fame,/ But his Captain’s hand on his shoulder smote/ ‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’/ The sand of the desert is sodden red, —/ Red with the wreck of a square that broke; —/ The Gatling’s jammed and the colonel dead,/ And the regiment blind with dust and smoke./ The river of death has brimmed his banks,/ And England’s far, and Honour a name,/ But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks,/ ‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’”

Sir Henry Newbolt “Vitaï Lampada”, 1898, quoted and described as “Probably the most famous poem of the late Victorian and Edwardian era” by Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era