The Ballad of Ping-Pong
The murmurous moments of May-time,What bountiful blessings they bring!As dew to the dawn of the day-time,Suspicions of Summer to Spring!
Let others imagine the time light,With maidens or books on their knee,Or live in the languorous limelightThat tinges the trunk of the Tree.
Let the timorous turn to their tennis,Or the bowls to which bumpkins belong,But the thing for grown women and men isThe pastime of ping and of pong.
The game of the glorious glamour!The feeling to fight till you fall!The hurricane hail and the hammer!The batter and bruise of the ball!
The glory of getting behind it!The brief but bewildering bliss!The fear of the failure to find it!The madness at making a miss!
The sound of the sphere as you smack it,Derisive, decisive, divine!The riotous rush of your racket,To mix and to mingle with mine!
The diadem dear to the King is,How sweet to the singer his song;To me so the plea of the ping is,And the passionate plaint of the pong.
I live for it, love for it, like it;Delight of my dearest of dreams!To stand and to strive and to strike it,--So certain, so simple it seems!
Then give me the game of the gay time,The ball on its wandering wing,The pastime for night or for day-time,The Pong, not to mention the Ping!
Words in this poem
- murmurous a.
- Attended with murmurs; exciting murmurs or complaint; murmuring. [Cf. L. murmuriosus, OF. murmuros.]
- bountiful a.
- Free in giving; liberal in bestowing gifts and favors.
- languorous a.
- Producing, or tending to produce, languor; characterized by languor. [From Languor: cf. F. langoureux.]
- pastime n.
- That which amuses, and serves to make time pass agreeably; sport; amusement; diversion. [Pass + time: cf. F. passetemps.]
- ping n.
- The sound made by a bullet in striking a solid object or in passing through the air. [Probably of imitative origin.]
- glorious a.
- Exhibiting attributes, qualities, or acts that are worthy of or receive glory; noble; praiseworthy; excellent; splendid; illustrious; inspiring admiration; as, glorious deeds. [OF. glorios, glorious, F. glorieux, fr. L. gloriosus. See Glory, n.]
- glamour n.
- A charm affecting the eye, making objects appear different from what they really are. [Scot. glamour, glamer; cf. Icel. glámeggdr one who is troubled with the glaucoma; or Icel. glam-s weakness of sight, glamour; glamr name of the moon, also of a ]
- bewildering a.
- Causing bewilderment or great perplexity; as, bewildering difficulties.
- plaint n.
- Audible expression of sorrow; lamentation; complaint; hence, a mournful song; a lament. Chaucer."The Psalmist's mournful plaint." [OE. plainte, pleynte, F. plainte, fr. L. plangere, planctum (plancta, fem. p.p.), to beat, beat the breast, lament. Cf. Complain, Plague, Plangent.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Ballad of Ping-Pong is in the public domain. This text is taken from Verse and Worse, Project Gutenberg ebook #36702; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Harry Graham, The Ballad of Ping-Pong, in Verse and Worse (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36702, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/graham-verse-and-worse/the-ballad-of-ping-pong.html, id L23347.
Form and metre
The Ballad of Ping-Pong is 36 lines in 9 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 8 of its 9 stanzas. The metre is anapaestic common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in anapaestic common measure.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB timeA · bringB · timeA · springB
- 2 ABAB lightA · kneeB · limelightA · treeB
- 3 -A-A tennis · belongA · is · pongA
- 4 ABAB glamourA · fallB · hammerA · ballB
- 5 ABAB itA · blissB · itA · missB
- 6 ABAB itA · divineB · racketA · mineB
- 7 ABAB isA · songB · isA · pongB
- 8 ABAB itA · dreamsB · itA · seemsB
- 9 ABAB timeA · wingB · timeA · pingB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against anapaestic common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The murmurous moments of May-time, | 9 | ·/˘˘/˘··· |
| What bountiful blessings they bring! | 8 | ·/˘˘/˘·· |
| As dew to the dawn of the day-time, | 9 | ········· |
| Suspicions of Summer to Spring! | 8 | ˘/˘·/˘·· |
| Let others imagine the time light, | 9 | ·/˘˘/˘··· |
| With maidens or books on their knee, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Or live in the languorous limelight | 9 | ····/˘˘/· |
| That tinges the trunk of the Tree. | 7 | ······· |
| Let the timorous turn to their tennis, | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| Or the bowls to which bumpkins belong, | 9 | ·····/˘˘/ |
| But the thing for grown women and men is | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The pastime of ping and of pong. | 8 | ·/······ |
| The game of the glorious glamour! | 9 | ····/˘˘/˘ |
| The feeling to fight till you fall! | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The hurricane hail and the hammer! | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| The batter and bruise of the ball! | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The glory of getting behind it! | 9 | ·/˘·/˘··· |
| The brief but bewildering bliss! | 8 | ···˘/˘˘· |
| The fear of the failure to find it! | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| The madness at making a miss! | 8 | ·/˘·/˘·· |
| The sound of the sphere as you smack it, | 9 | ········· |
| Derisive, decisive, divine! | 8 | ˘/˘˘/˘˘/ |
| The riotous rush of your racket, | 9 | ·/˘˘···/˘ |
| To mix and to mingle with mine! | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| The diadem dear to the King is, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| How sweet to the singer his song; | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| To me so the plea of the ping is, | 9 | ········· |
| And the passionate plaint of the pong. | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| I live for it, love for it, like it; | 9 | ········· |
| Delight of my dearest of dreams! | 8 | ˘/··/˘·· |
| To stand and to strive and to strike it,-- | 9 | ········· |
| So certain, so simple it seems! | 8 | ·/˘·/˘·· |
| Then give me the game of the gay time, | 9 | ········· |
| The ball on its wandering wing, | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| The pastime for night or for day-time, | 9 | ·/······· |
| The Pong, not to mention the Ping! | 8 | ····/˘·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.