Q CAN you help me identify the following poem? I cannot recall the poet, or the rest of it. It starts as follows:

There's a breathless hush in the Close tonight,

Ten to make and the match to win,

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

An hour to play and the last man in. - G Schwanz, Darlington.

A THIS poem is called Vita Lampada and was published in 1897 by Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938), an Oxford educated lawyer and poet. The poem is about a schoolboy cricketer who, in later life has to fight in Africa.

During the battle the boy recalls his cricket-playing schooldays. The poem became especially popular at the time of the First World War. In his later years, Newbolt came to dislike the poem as he was called on to recite it so many times. In 1923, during a tour of Canada, he described it as "a kind of Frankenstein's monster" that he had created.

The remaining verses are as follows:

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 schoolboy rallies the ranks,

'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

This is the word that year by year

While in her place the School is set

Every one of her sons must hear,

And none that hears it dare forget.

This they all with a joyful mind

Bear through life like a torch in flame,

And falling fling to the host behind

'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

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Published 21/10/2002