To a Golf-Ball

Did "Silvertown" thy merits claim,
Or "Musselborough"?

Whate'er

ye were, or whence ye came,
Your ruin's thorough!

Insensate lump of molded gutta!
I ne'er essayed to use a putta
But my discomfiture was utta
Through thy mad pranks!
Unwittingly some words I'd mutta
That were not thanks!

Far be it from me to despise;
Ye have a value in my eyes

That's not proportioned to thy size,

However small.

In fact, I hold ye as a prize,
Ye battered ball!

With others of your kin and kith
I'll hand ye o'er to Willie Smith
Now what I tell ye is no myth —
He'll make ye new!

I don't know what he does it with,

But yet it's true!

19

The Man with the Hoe

Bowed by the weight of centuries, he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground;
The emptiness of ages in his face

And on his back the burden of the world.
Before him yawns the bunker's dreaded deeps,
The sand as by a typhoon whirled and tossed;
And in a corner, jammed beneath a cop,
Lies the d- -d ball.

Full many a vicious swipe
He leveled at that ball, and many a stroke
Was added to his score, but all in vain.
From out his well-filled bag each club in turn
He seized, and smote the unresisting sphere.
The lofter and the mashie failed complete ;
E'en the fierce niblick failed to hoist it out.
And now the atmosphere is rent and torn
With howls of baffled rage and curses deep.
Anathema Maranatha is pronounced,
And the dread powers of Hades are invoked
Upon the ball, the bunker, and the game.
The terror-stricken caddie climbs a tree,

And breathes a prayer that he may 'scape unseen.

The Man with the Hoe

Haply a Hayseed passes with a hoe.

Like as a drowning man the floating straw,
So doth our golfer pounce upon the hoe
And deftly scrapes the ball from out the sand
And strikes the attitude above described.
Swiftly descends the caddie from the tree,
And straight he thrusts the hoe within the bag.
Eftsoons the Hayseed fondles the "long green
And gleeful goes his way in merry mood.
The golfer now proceedeth with his game,
And soon his equanimity returns,

Aided thereto by many a clever stroke
And by the fact that he is bunker-proof.
Blithely he makes his round, and soon 'tis o'er.
With sprightly steps the smoking-room he seeks,
Commands a high-ball of heroic size,

And as the mellowing spirit works its will,

21

He views the world and all mankind with thoughts
Grown kind and ever kinder. As his eye falls
Upon the modest hoe within the bag,
Surrounded by the other grosser clubs,
In the exuberance of his cheerfulness
And in slight recognition of his debt
He toasts it once again, and sinks to rest.

The Pessimist

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud!
Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,

Our much-vaunted skill in this ancient Scotch

game

Doth vanish until there's naught left but the name.

We start quite puffed up from the No. One tee,
With a lurking idea we may do it in three.
But the hope we have fostered so fervent and fond
May suffer a chill from the damp of the pond.

Ambition that soared at the No. Two tee
Falls limply to earth e'er we reach No. Three.
While the "Heart of Midlothian" dashes to earth
The joy that a beautiful tee-shot gave birth.

And what is the use of reviling our fate

When we fail to beat "bogey" in playing the "gate."

And nothing our skill so completely confounds
If our No. Six drive lands the ball out of bounds.

Our play for the Seventh of course is all wrong; The lies they are cuppy, the grass it is long.

The Pessimist

We find all the bunkers and trouble galore-
The "bogey" is six-it takes us four more.

23

The Eighth is "dead easy"—were't not for the brook.

The Ninth was a " cinch -but the course we for

sook.

We're "quite off our game”—we “find we're not

fit";

Our patience is gone, and we're ready to quit.

No matter how well we think we can play,
It never is safe to be "getting too gay."
Perfection of style should not make us o'erbold,
For a "rub of the green
may "lay us out cold."

For we are the same things our fathers have been.
We see the same hazards our fathers have seen.
We use the same caddies and play the same clubs,
We make the same flukes and "dub" the same

"dubs."

The shots we are trying for, they too would try. The foozles we're flying from, they too would fly. To the record we're clinging to, they too would cling,

But it speeds from our grasp like a bird on the

wing.