I.
I swung to the saddle, and Doris, and she;I pedalled, Joan pedalled, we pedalled all three;"Well done!" yelled the paddock; the Varsity yelled;"Done!" echoed the bookie whose bullion I held;As with bells hard a-ringing and horns going Toot!We debouched from the Ring on the Bottisham route.
II.
Conversation was none; we were nursing our breath,As we rode, knee to knee, in the silence of death;Not a lurch was observed, not a wobble was felt,When I hitched up my bloomers and tightened my belt;Then stooped to the wind with my back like a bow.And my gear at a hundred-and-sixty or so.
III.
Our way at Quywater was queered by a cow.But we stove in her haunches, I never knew how;At Teversham Joan had a touch of the cramp,Her nose being rather too near to her lamp;And at Barnwell, in dodging a beast of a mule,We were into the ruck of a primary school.
IV.
Three moribund infants lay out in our wakeAs we panted "So long!"--for appearance's sake;Some sort of a Nemesis chased us in carts,But we scorched at our bravest and swallowed our hearts;King's turrets in sight! we were over the worst,When the Dunlop of Joan met a bottle and burst!
V.
I omit to record the expressions she used.With a list of the various parties accused;We remarked on her luck, but declined to alight,Though our hubs were red-hot and our bearings were tight;So we splashed through a puddle and spurted againPast Midsummer Common and into the Lane.
VI.
To the right with a skid at the gutter we raced;By the Union a couple of cabs were displaced;My off-knicker was rent and the knee showing through,But we flattened our chests on the handles, and flew;We were flush with the bridge, we were flying the Cam,When Doris was heard to say something like "Dear me!"
VII.
She was right--as she proved to me, later, in bed--For her axle had split, and the same with her head;Though I guessed she had gone to her ultimate sleep,Yet I shouted a "Righto!" and shot up the steep;For I still had to tackle the best of a league,And my treadles were showing a trace of fatigue.
VIII.
I was up to the Castle and clear of the town,With my tongue hanging out and my hair coming down;Then I rose in my seat and went out of my mindTo the clink of our winnings that waggled behind;Clapped my boots, waived my brake, ran amok through a dog,Till at last into Girton I fell like a log.
IX.
Of the rest I remember a roar of applauseAs I lay with a splinter of spoke in my jaws;There was whiskey for one and an oil-bath for two,Which they said, very frankly, was only our due,Who had broken the record, and several teeth,In conveying their yellow-boys home from the Heath.
