The real ones, the right ones, the straight ones and the true, <br />The pukka, peerless sportsmen-their numbers are but few; <br />The men who keep on playing though the sun be in eclipse, <br />The men who go on losing with a laugh upon their lips. <br />The men who care but little for the laurels of renown; <br />The men who turn their horses back to help the man that's down; <br />The fearless and the friendly ones, the courtly and the kind; <br />The men whose lion courage is with gentleness combined. <br />My notion of a sportsman ? - I'll try, then, to define. <br />For preference well bred, of course, of some clean- living line; <br />With pride of place and ancestry whose service was the King's; <br />With all a noble knight's contempt for low, left- handed things. <br />Not the ‘good sport' who burdens us with cheap and futile chat <br />Of the 'pedigree' of this one and the ‘outside chance' of that, <br />But a man who loves good horses just to handle them and ride <br />Where the fences call to valour and the English grass lies wide. <br />All the best and truest sportsmen I have lived with and have known <br />Have a changeless faith within them which their simple hearts enthrone, <br />Believing in the God that made the green fields passing fair, <br />The God that gave good courage - and to every man his share. <br />And all the truest sportsmen I have met have had this gift: <br />A love of all the classic books that lighten and uplift; <br />And all have loved red woodlands, swift birds and coloured flowers; <br />And all have played with children and counted not the hours. <br />And I think when God has gathered all the men that He has made, <br />The perfect British sportsman may stand forward unafraid; <br />For, brave and kind and courtly, and clean of heart and hand, <br />No life than his seems nearer to the life our Maker planned.<br /><br />William Henry Ogilvie<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-true-sportsman/
