The Golfer's Rubaiyat, Henry Walcott Boynton [read out loud books txt] 📗
- Author: Henry Walcott Boynton
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Are you a Golfer more than when last week
You did Your best, and barely saved your Hide?
[Pg 40]
XXXVI
’TIS like a private Bar where for a Day
Innumerable Rickies come your way,
Happy—but on the morrow happier far
Had there been less to drink and more to pay.
[Pg 41]
XXXVII
AND fear not lest the Fair Green after your
Ill-luck and mine should yield Bad Lies no more;
One or two Others may fare ill as you:
Nay, even three, or maybe—maybe four.
[Pg 42]
XXXVIII
WHEN you and I our final Match have play’d,
Think not the ever-springing Green shall fade;
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As Caddies heed the Bag,—their Quarter paid.
[Pg 43]
XXXIX
A MOMENT’S Flight—a momentary Flick
Of Being from the Providential Stick,
And Lo!—the phantom human Sphere has reacht
The Nothing it set out from—Ah, be quick!
[Pg 44]
XL
WOULD you that Fillip of Existence spend
About THE SECRET—quick about it, Friend!
A Hair perhaps divides the False and True,
And upon what, prithee, does this Golf depend?
[Pg 45]
XLI
A HAIR perhaps divides the False and True,
Yes, and a single Jamie were the Clue—
Could you but find him—to the Championship,
And peradventure to the Champion too.
[Pg 46]
XLII
AND yet what matter who a Moment reigns?
’Tis not for such a Toy you take your pains;
To play the steady, simple, honest Game;
That is the Joy and Credit that remains.
[Pg 47]
XLIII
BEHIND the uprisen Turf fair in the Ditch,
To risk the Overhang, or play back—which
To do? Ah, Brother, let the Gallery go:
Than tear the Web, better to drop a Stitch!
[Pg 48]
XLIV
TWO—Three—aye, better Golf we all have seen—
But—bravo! Four—a sweet Approach and Clean;
Steady, you still may well go down in Five:
There are no Hazards on the Putting-Green.
[Pg 49]
XLV
WASTE not your Hour, nor try in vain to fix
The How and Why—some wondrous Brew to mix;
Better be jocund with a calm Two-score
Than sadden for a bitter Thirty-six.
[Pg 50]
XLVI
STRANGE, is it not?—that of the myriads who
Into the Out-of-Bounds have late play’d through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Stroke
To guarantee the shortest Hole in Two.
[Pg 51]
XLVII
THE Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes,
And ye who play behold the Ball fly clean,
Or roll a Rod; but why? Who knows? Who knows?
[Pg 52]
XLVIII
THE swinging Brassie strikes; and, having struck,
Moves on: nor all your Wit or future Luck
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Stroke,
Nor from the Card a single Seven pluck.
[Pg 53]
XLIX
NO hope by Club or Ball to win the Prize:
The batter’d, blacken’d Re-made sweetly flies,
Swept cleanly from the Tee; this is the truth:
Nine-tenths is Skill, and all the rest is Lies.
[Pg 54]
L
AND that inverted Ball they call the High—
By which the Duffer thinks to live or die,
Lift not your hands to It for help, for it
As impotently froths as you or I.
[Pg 55]
LI
OF Earth’s first Clay was the last Golfer framed,
And that last Golfer’s latest Score was named
When the first Morning of Creation sang
The Dirge of every Duffer Golf has claimed.
[Pg 56]
LII
YESTERDAY this Day’s Foozling did prepare;
To-morrow’s Slicing will not yield to Prayer:
Play! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Play! for you know not why you go, nor where.
[Pg 57]
LIII
I TELL you this—When, after youth was past,
A kindly Heav’n gave me to Golf at last;
No Freedom but I gladly barter’d for
The satisfying Bond that holds me fast.
[Pg 58]
LIV
AND this I know: there is a Charm about
The quiet State of Golf, tho’ fools may flout,
That with its magic has unlock’d the Door
Of Happiness they only howl without.
* * * *
[Pg 59]
LV
AS under cover of departing Day
Slinks the defeated Duffer on his way,
Once more within the Maker’s house alone
I stood, surrounded by the Tools of Play.
[Pg 60]
LVI
CLUBS of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small,
That stood along the floor and by the wall;
And some old batter’d Veterans were; and some
Had swung perhaps, but never driv’n at all.
[Pg 61]
LVII
SAID one among them—“Surely not for naught
Tom Morris fashion’d me with anxious thought,
Has not my Form won many a Match and Cup?
And yet—and yet—I am no longer bought.”
[Pg 62]
LVIII
THEN said a Second—“Hear the Codger croak!
Sure he would make of Golf an ancient Joke;
But Me—just think! a modern Willie Park,
My fickle Owner cannot sell nor soak!”
[Pg 63]
LIX
AFTER a momentary silence spake
A Brassie of a more ungainly make—
“They sneer at me for leaning all awry:
Well, then, I ask who won the last Sweepstake?”
[Pg 64]
LX
WHEREAT some one of the loquacious Lot,
I think a putting Niblick, or if not,
A driving Putter, or a goose-neck’d Cleek—
“Pray, what is Golf then,—and the Golfer what?”
[Pg 65]
LXI
“WHY,” said another, “Some there are who say
That Golf is but a Game that Golfers play,
And some that Life is but a mighty Green,
And Golf the Art to use it day by day.”
[Pg 66]
LXII
“WELL,” murmur’d one, “let whoso make or buy,
All in one Pickle we—like as we lie:
For let the right Good-Fellow come along,
We all may lay the Ball dead by and by.”
[Pg 67]
LXIII
SO one and one and one I heard them speak:
“Ah, Friends,” said I, “’tis not a Make we seek,
A Duffer arm’d with all the Clubs there be—
What is he to a Player with a Cleek?”
* * * *
[Pg 68]
LXIV
LATELY, agape beside the door of Fame,
Sudden a Touch upon my shoulder came,
And thro’ the Dusk an Angel Shape held out
The greater Guerdon; and it was—the Game!
[Pg 69]
LXV
THE Game that can with Logic absolute
The Dronings of the Soberheads confute,
Silence the scoffing ones, and in a trice
Life’s leaden metal into Gold transmute.
[Pg 70]
LXVI
INDEED, the brave Game I have loved so well
Has little taught me how to buy or sell;
Has pawn’d my Greatness for an Hour of Ease,
And barter’d cold Cash for—a Miracle.
[Pg 71]
LXVII
INDEED, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore—but it was Winter when I swore,
And then and then came Spring, and Club-in-hand
I hasten’d forth for one Round—one Round more.
[Pg 72]
LXVIII
BUT much as Golf has play’d the Infidel,
And robb’d me of my worldly Profit—Well,
I often wonder what the Grubbers earn
One half so precious as the Joy they sell.
[Pg 73]
LXIX
WHAT! for a senseless Bank-Account to wreak
Their manly Strength on Ledgers, till too weak
To swing a club?—So Caddies calmly tread
In Mire the Ball Heav’n sent them here to seek.
[Pg 74]
LXX
WHAT! as a poor dull Drudge to waste the Force
That might have made a Golfer, till the Source
Of Golf be dried—and Life grow all too brief
To top a Ball around the Ladies’ Course!
[Pg 75]
LXXI
YET, ah, that Golf should vanish with the green!
What noble matches Winter might have seen;
And in Old Age what glorious Hazards foil’d,
What Zest of painful Pleasures might have been!
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