30 MAY 1952, Page 14

- The .Failure

His ambition was to be always seen, Handsome under floodlights or in white, Graceful on the summer's fluting green : White flash and crack, creating frantic flight Of ball to boundary like frightened rabbit His the hero's wrist and bat must cause ; And he would learn assiduously the habit Of graciously receiving due applause.

But never did the little boys appear With anxious albums for his scribbled name, Nor did the shorthand typists turn and stare Enchanted by his beauty and his fame ; And when he threw aside his shabby cloak Of flesh, no sculptor• carved a public tomb ; No one noticed, not even as a joke, His dusty dying in a furnished room.

VERNON SCANNELL.