Standing one day on the golf-links,
I was weary and ill at ease;
And I baffled and foozled idly
Over the whins and tees.
I know not what I was dreaming,
Or where I was rubbering then;
But I swiped that ball, of a sudden,
With the force of two score men.
It sped through the crimson twilight
Like a shot from a ten-inch gun;
And it passed from my fevered vision
To the realm of the vanished sun;
It chasseed over the bunker,
It caromed hazard and hill;
It went like a thing infernal--
I suppose it is going still.
It shied each perplexing stymie
With infinite nerve and ease;
And bored right on through the landscape
As if it were loath to cease.
I have sought--but I seek it vainly--
That ball of the strenuous pace,
That went from the sole of my niblick
And entered into space.
It may be some blooming caddie
Can sooner or later explain;
It may be that only in heaven
I shall find that ball again.
_Smart Set._