71
Parker's Piece, May 19, 1891.
To see good Tennis! what diviner joy
Can fill our leisure, or our minds employ?
Not Sylvia's self is more supremely fair,
Than balls that hurtle through the conscious air.
Not Stella's form instinct with truer grace
Than Lambert's racket poised to win the chase.
Not Chloe's harp more native to the ear,
Than the tense strings which smite the flying sphere.
When Lambert boasts the superhuman force,
Or splits the echoing grille without remorse:
When Harradine, as graceful as of yore,
Wins better than a yard, upon the floor;
When Alfred's ringing cheer proclaims success,
Or Saunders volleys in resistlessness;
When Heathcote's service makes the dedans ring
With just applause, and own its honoured king;
When Pettitt's prowess all our zeal awoke
Till high Olympus shuddered at the stroke;
Or, when, receiving thirty and the floor,
The novice serves a dozen faults or more;
Can fill our leisure, or our minds employ?
Not Sylvia's self is more supremely fair,
Than balls that hurtle through the conscious air.
Not Stella's form instinct with truer grace
Than Lambert's racket poised to win the chase.
Not Chloe's harp more native to the ear,
Than the tense strings which smite the flying sphere.
When Lambert boasts the superhuman force,
Or splits the echoing grille without remorse:
When Harradine, as graceful as of yore,
Wins better than a yard, upon the floor;
When Alfred's ringing cheer proclaims success,
Or Saunders volleys in resistlessness;
When Heathcote's service makes the dedans ring
With just applause, and own its honoured king;
When Pettitt's prowess all our zeal awoke
Till high Olympus shuddered at the stroke;
Or, when, receiving thirty and the floor,
The novice serves a dozen faults or more;
