The New Cricket-Ground
The loveliness of Earth is still unspent:
Her beauties, singly known, combined are strange:
And with what fondness she doth freshly range
Her ancient gems for man's new ravishment!
On this soft dew-fed tree-girt sward of Kent
The cricket-god to-day is first enthroned,
The dun herd banished, and its pasture owned
By white-clad players and their snowy tent.
The field I knew before, the lads I knew,
And oft elsewhere have watched their pleasant game
But now an added lustre comes to view.
Familiar features look no more the same;
The new-set picture gains another hue,
And sheds another glory on its frame.
~~
Edward Cracroft Lefroy (1855-1891)
from Echoes of Theocritus, and other sonnets, 1885
[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
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