The Place where the Old Cleek Broke (other Verses)

(_After Whyte-Melville_)

Life is hollow to the golfer, of however high his rank,
If the dock-leaf and the nettle grow too free,
If a bramble bar his progress, if he's bunkered by a bank,
If his golf-ball jerks and wobbles off the tee.
There's a ditch I never pass, full of stones and broken glass,
And I'd sooner lift my ball and count a stroke,
For the tears my vision blot when I see the fatal spot,
'Tis the place where my old cleek broke.

There's his haft upon the table, there's his head upon a chair;
And a better never felt the summer rain;
I may curse and I may swear, my umbrella-stand is bare,
I shall never use my gallant cleek again!
With what unaccustomed speed would he strike the Golf-ball teed!
How it sounded on his metal at each stroke!
Not a flyer in the game such parabolas could claim,
At the place where the old cleek broke!

Was he cracked? I hardly think it. Did he slip? I do not know.
He had struck the ball for forty yards or more;
He was driving smooth and even, just as hard as he could go,
I had never seen him striking so before.
But I hardly can complain, for there must have been a strain
I had forced beyond the compass of a joke --
And no club, however strong, could have lasted over long
At the place where the old cleek broke!

There are men, both staid and sound, who hold it happiness unique,
At which only the irreverent can scoff,
That is reached by means of brassey, driver, niblick, spoon, or cleek,
And that life is not worth living without Golf.
Well, I hope it may be so; for myself I only know
That I never more shall try another stroke;
Yes, I've wearied of the sport, since a lesson I was taught,
At the place where the old cleek broke.

End of title