MY VIEWS
[Mr Sydney Colvin has stated that golf is the enemy of man, and that the golfer is a danger to life and limb.]
Your hand, oh illustrious Sydney!
Your bitter remarks are quite true:
We’re men of identical kidney;
I hate golf as deeply as you.
I hold him the meanest of rascals
Who dares in my presence to speak
With praise of his mashie, or Haskell’s,
Or cleek.
Myself, I’m no good at a bunker.
My shots make the audience scoff,
And the caddie, impertinent younker,
Will grin when I try to drive off:
When I smite at a ball I can’t raise it,
Nor am I a person who putts.
In fact, I can’t play, so to phrase it,
For nuts.
And, gadzooks! when I go for a ramble
On a seemingly desolate heath,
My safety is purely a gamble;
I escape by the skin of my teeth:
As I pause, some poetical trifle
To frame—with my gaze on the sky—
A ball, like a shot from a rifle,
Sings by.
Oh, when golfers of every description
Disappear from our downtrodden land,
And a person is hanged on suspicion
If found with a club in his hand.
When no raucous and deafening bellow
Rends the air with fortissimo “Fore!”
Then life may appeal to a fellow
Once more.