He had not made the team. The ultimate moment -- Last practice for the big game, his senior year -- Had come and gone again with dizzying swiftness. It was all over now, and the sudden cheer That rose and swelled to greet the elect eleven Sounded his bitter failure on his ear. He had not made the team. He was graduating: The last grim chance was gone, and the last hope fled; The final printed list tacked up in the quarters; A girl in the bleachers turned away her head. He knew that she was trying to keep from crying; Under his tan there burned a painful red. He had not made the team. The family waiting His wire, up State; the little old loyal town That had looked to him year by year to make it famous, And laureled him each time home with fresh renown; The men from the house there, tense, breathlessly watching, And, after all, once more, he'd thrown them down. He had not made the team, after years of striving; After all he had paid to try, and held it cheap, -- The sweat and blood and strain and iron endurance, -- And the harassed nights, too aching-tired to sleep; The limp that perhaps he might be cured of some day; The ugly scar that he would always keep. He had not made the team. He watched from the side lines, Two days later, a part of a sad patrol, Battered and bruised in his crouched, blanketed body, Sick and sore to his depths, and aloof in dole, Until he saw the enemy's swift advancing Sweeping his team-mates backward. Then from his soul Was cleansed the sense of self and the sting of failure, And he was one of a pulsing, straining whole, Bracing to stem the tide of the on-flung bodies, Helping to halt that steady, relentless roll; Then he was part of a fighting, frenzied unit Forcing them back and back and back from the goal. There on the side lines came the thought like a whipcrack As his team rallied and rose and took control: @3He had not made the team, but for four long seasons, Each of ten grinding weeks, he had given the flower, The essence, and strength of body brain, and spirit, He and his kind -- the second team -- till the power To cope with opposition and to surmount it Into the team was driven against this hour!@1 What did it matter who held fast to the leather, He or another? What was a four-years' dream? Out of his heart the shame and rancor lifted; There burst from his throat a hoarse, exultant scream. Not in the fight, but part of it, he was winning! This was his victory: he had @3made@1 the team! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CLOISTER by ISAAC ROSENBERG THE WISE WOMAN by LOUIS UNTERMEYER THE NEW CHURCH ORGAN by WILLIAM MCKENDREE CARLETON THE SONG OF HIAWATHA: HIAWATHA'S FASTING by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862 by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER POSTHUMOUS REMORSE by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE |