O WILD WIND, thou breath of Vuvuzelas' being,
Thou in whose presence the players
Are driven, like sailors to a siren's call,
Their flags with stripes and fields of green and white,
Black and blue, bloody and hectic red, and tarnished yellow,
And insignia of pestilence-stricken multitudes! Oh, thou
Who chariotest to their fruitful harvest
The teams that laid low through winter's barren cold,
Each like a pod of seeds, dead and dry, until
Thine Plastic Sister of the Summer shall blow
Her clarion o'er the Earth's viewing audience,
And fill the stands with coronet-like buds,
With living hues and monotones plain,
And just plain annoying.
Wild Spirit, which art buzzing everywhere,
Tormenter and Persecuter: Hear, O hear!
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the soccer field's commotion,
Loose plagues like locusts to consume our sanity,
That thunder from the stands of Soccer City,
Angels of kicks and dives! They are spread
On the green surface before thine airy surge,
Lifting the hair on the back of my neck
Of some fierce Mænad, ev'n from the dim verge
Of the field's edge to the top of the stands,
The roar of the approaching World Cup Final. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing
Will be the dome of a vast association football-specific stadium
Vaulted with all thy congregated might,
From whose atmosphere in Johannesburg
Sonic rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!
Thou who didst waken from their summer-dreams
The blue Mediterranean and North Seas, where they lay,
Awake'd by the boring trumpet that spans continents,
And stirred from sleep all manner of being,
Quivering within the wave's humming drone. Thou
For whose path Europe's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while above
Those seas bloom, bearing their plastic foliage. Know
Its voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear
And tremble and despoil yourselves: O hear!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
A swift wind to whisk me away;
A digital wave to pant beneath thy power, and adjust
My volume, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable!
O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of torment has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee -- tameless, and swift, and proud.
Make me thy lyre, ev'n as in the stands of Soccer City:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from us all a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, World Cup Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this Spoof,
Scatter, as from a satirist's desk,
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to propose a question to all of Earth,
The trumpet of a prophecy: O Vuvuzela,
If Winter comes, what sound doth trumpet the coming year
With you lodged in a man's arse?
Many Thanks to Percy Bysshe Shelley
