THE CROWD AT THE BALL GAME - Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde Poems

 
 

Poems » oscar fingal o flahertie wills wilde » the crowd at the ball game

THE CROWD AT THE BALL GAME

XXVI

The crowd at the ball game
is moved uniformly

by a spirit of uselessness
which delights them --

all the exciting detail
of the chase

and the escape, the error
the flash of genius --

all to no end save beauty
the eternal --

So in detail they, the crowd,
are beautiful

for this
to be warned against

saluted and defied --
It is alive, venomous

it smiles grimly
its words cut --

The flashy female with her
mother, gets it --

The Jew gets it straight -- it
is deadly, terrifying --

It is the Inquisition, the
Revolution

It is beauty itself
that lives

day by day in them
idly --

This is
the power of their faces

It is summer, it is the solstice
the crowd is

cheering, the crowd is laughing
in detail

permanently, seriously
without thought