Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OPENING DAY, by WILLIAM A. PHELON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OPENING DAY, by                    
First Line: Every fan is packed as closely as a neatly packed
Last Line: Baseball has been duly started—it's the close of opening day!
Subject(s): Baseball; Sports


EVERY fan is packed as closely as a neatly packed sardine,
They have overflowed the bleachers and are thronged upon the green—
They compel the use of ground-rules, they restrict the fielders' leaps,
And the ball that hits among them is a ball that's gone for keeps!
Flags are flapping, bands are crashing—by these tokens be it known,
That the ruler, Old King Baseball, has again resumed the throne!
From the massed and eager thousands there ascends a mighty roar,
As their enemies, the umpires, don their uniforms once more—
Then a whoop of joy ecstatic, rising till it meets the blue,
As the pitcher's sturdy sinews send the first strike whizzing through!

Evening nears—the tumult lessens—through the falling dusk and dark,
Come the weary-throated thousands, ebbing from the trampled park.
With tremendous glee those thousands greet the sinking of the sun,
Caroling their joyous war cries—that is, if the home club won!
If the home club lost—Great Caesar!—hear the long lugubrious howls,
Hear the startling execrations, and the sullen, wolfish growls!
What's the difference! you wonder—one game in a year is small—
But, to half of all those thousands—Opening Day looms up as ALL!
Joyous, then, or discontented, they flock out upon their way—
Baseball has been duly started—it's the close of Opening Day!





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