[Matt Q]

XVII: ‘Twice a Week the Winter thorough’.

Twice a week the winter thorough
Here stood I to keep the goal:
Football then was fighting sorrow
For the young man’s soul.

Now in Maytime to the wicket
Out I march with bat and pad:
See the son of grief at cricket
Trying to be glad.

Try I will; no harm in trying:
Wonder ’tis how little mirth
Keeps the bones of man from lying
On the bed of earth.

-A. E. Housman.




I like this one for the misery more than for the sport. 'thorough' in the first line is an archaic form of 'through'.