Mind Over Mud.

Enter Winter with his frozen face, his blizzard blues, his shrieks and rattles, his downpours and uproars, and his impertinent pandemonium. What do we care for his water-works, his gusty gambols, his cold comfort, and his microbean machinations?

Ho, Winter, with your mud and scud,
You try to freeze our bones and blood,
And make us feel like scuttled mutton.
We don't care half a trouser's button
For all your oozy ballyhoo—
We've got the winter goods on you.
Your hoary hand and muddy feet
Can't scare us now—we's got you beat.
However fierce your tag and tug be,
We knock you back with games like Rugby;
And hockey, golf and soccer, too,
Are here to put it over you.
You think to make us miss our step—
Your efforts only give us pep,
To run the harder up and down
Some muddy field—yes, you can frown—
But we defeat your prods and pulls,
By building up the corpuscles
With ox-tail soup and suchlike things,
To counteract your stabs and stings.
You howl and scream, you bleak-faced blot,
And whistle through the chimney-pot;
You fill the fields with slush and mires,
But we defeat your stings with fires.
And listen while you “do your nut”
In frenzy, round the water butt.
In fact we get so used to you
And all your bawling ballyhoo,
We know that you are not so tough
As one would think—so cut the rough!
And when you howl from morn to Mond'ys,
We answer you with thicker “undies,”
And chase a ball through mud and ooze,
To dissipate your blizzard blues.
You're not as clever as you thought,
For our reply is—Winter Sport!
We keep your chilly rage in check
By jumping on each other's neck
On Saturdays. By such K.O-ing
We keep the circulation going,
And roll each other in the mud,
To speed the movement of the blood.
So now you know, with all your fuss,
You haven't got the wood on us.