Wayside Weeds Part 5

Who has a waggle like Rhona Adair?

Of all the girls I've seen Playing across the green You, Rhona, are the Queen!

Rhona Adair!

The Duffer's Elegy

"Oh! put me on your waiting list I'll be a golfer if I may And learn the joys too long I've missed Before I get too old to play!"

They gave him on the list a place And year by year they let him wait, For golfers are a long-lived race And very seldom emigrate.

When, after many weary years, He reached the top his sponsor said, "The friend (excuse these natural tears) Whom I proposed has long been dead."

And when at last in Charon's wherry, It was the sponsor's turn to stand His friend came down to meet the ferry A phantom niblick in his hand.

"Welcome to Hades," thus the shade In hollow-sounding accents spoke Then spied a puff-ball and essayed To loft it, but he m.u.f.fed his stroke.

"Permit me, pray, to be your guide Until you've learnt your way about Our golf course is our greatest pride Old Colonel Bogey laid it out.

"Some people say Avernus stinks And Acheron smells like a sewer But Fernhill golfers like our links They find the air so fresh and pure.

"Cocytus, Styx and Phlegethon As hazards serve extremely well, In this particular alone, The Lambton links are just like h.e.l.l.

"The asphodel wants cutting sadly, The lies are wretched, more's the pity But everything is managed badly By that infernal Green Committee.

"Come, lay aside your shroud and pall And play a friendly round with me."

(A Dead Sea apple was the ball, A pinch of church-yard dust, the tee.)

He took the club of cypress wood And smote what seemed a mighty blow, But, though the aim was true and good The ball remained in _statu quo_.

"Alack and well-a-day," he cried, "A duffer must I ever be, A duffer I have lived and died A duffer through Eternity."

1905.

When Potter Played

When Potter played in front of me The other day upon the links, The mist rolled landward from the sea (The sleepy Caddie yawns and blinks), We watched him waggle at the tee And curl his body into kinks, When Potter played in front of me The other day upon the links.

We watched him make the divots flee And dribble o'er the bunker's brinks, The dewdrops sparkled on the lea, The sun shone through the fog bank's c.h.i.n.ks.

My partner, hopeful, said to me "He'll lose, and let us through methinks!"

When Potter played in front of me The other day upon the links.

The noonday sun looks down in glee While Potter in the bunker swinks, He plies the niblick merrily While Caddie unto Caddie winks.

The crow on yonder tall fir tree Looks down and caws at such high jinks, When Potter played in front of me The other day upon the links.

The shadows fall on land and sea, The sun to rest in splendour sinks, And Potter crouched on hand and knee Thinks out each putt, and thinks and thinks.

We all got home too late for tea!

My mind with grief and horror shrinks From memory of the day when we Played after Potter on the links.

1910.

Colonial Preference

Macgregor, always spick and span, Was quite the military man.

He never walked about the town Arrayed in sober cap and gown, But blazed in scarlet, gold and steel, And clanked a sabre at his heel.

He took no pride in his degree, In F.C.S. and F.I.C., But wrote with joy akin to tears C.D., Canadian Engineers!

Macgregor had been often sent His country's arms to represent, To Chatham, Woolwich, Aldershot, Or anywhere, it mattered not.

He always followed, never weary, "Quo fas et gloria duxere."

At length, because they thought him yearning To represent his Country's learning, Toronto Universitee, Knowing how ready he would be Alike in "bello" and in "pace,"

Despatched him to the I.C.A.C.

He packed his trappings Academical, And sailed to join the Congress Chemical, Which met that year in London reeky, To study "la chimie appliquee."

Watching the vessel's fall and rise, 'Twas thus he did soliloquise- "I may not wear my sword and spurs, But one glad thought my bosom stirs, 'Tis this that I shall surely be Presented to His Majesty!

It may be when he sees my face He will reward me with a place With my deserts commensurate The Secretary, say, of State For War, or give me Chief Command Of all his troops on sea and land!"

Arrived in town, his journey done, He took a cab to Kensington, Sir William Ramsay, honest man, With kindly words to greet him ran.

"Put on," he cried, "your cleanest s.h.i.+rt And free your hands and face from dirt, To-morrow you shall go with me To meet His Gracious Majesty!"

When they alighted from the train They met the Lord High Chamberlain Who scanned each name with anxious care Lest some who ought not should be there.

"Here's Stinkemout from Buda Pesth, And Sneezetoff, and all the rest, Ezra P. Binks from Idaho, But here's a name I do not know 'Dr. Macgregor from Toronto,'

That's something that I've not got onto!"

Sir William cried "The College where My friend Macgregor holds a chair Is in Toronto, Canada."

"Ah!" said the Chamberlain, "Ahah!

I've heard of Canada, of course, But that's another coloured horse.

Your friend, to say it gives me pain, Will have to toddle back again!

The King, the invitation states, Receives the Foreign Delegates.

Remove this person from the list He's nothing but a Colonist."

A prophet, says the Holy Book, Must not at home for honour look, The greater here includes the lesser, For "Prophet" therefore read "Professor."

1912.

The Lyric League[9]

We be seventy Lyric Poets, All in the Fatherland, Our verse is delightful, although its Not easy to understand.

We're the flower and crown of the nation, The crown and flower of the earth, But we find our remuneration Inadequate to our worth.

We sing of "Sehnsucht" and "Trauer,"