Then, when the uniform was new
\nand muscles flowering in the flesh —
\nwhen exultation thrusted you
\ninto and through the bursting dash,
\nthere was the handle. Your easy hand
\ntook it in stride, the green baton,
\nrushed it through the cinder land
\nand finishing, eagerly passed it on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There was a second verse but I can’t dredge it up from memory. This was written around 1962 or 1963. <\/em><\/p>\n Here’s the beginning of a new<\/b> second verse, composed on 11 Feb 2019:<\/em><\/p>\n Now, as the decades take their toll, Then, when the uniform was new and muscles flowering in the flesh — when exultation thrusted you into and through the bursting dash, there was the handle. Your easy hand took it in stride, the green baton, rushed it through the cinder land and finishing, eagerly passed it on. Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1963-and-earlier","category-poetry"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions\/463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nyour strength remains, but your speed has flown.
\nEndurance fades, but your will is whole
\nand the joy of striving still your own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"