The City of Golf
Robert Fuller Murray 1863 – 1894
Would you like to see a city given over,
Soul and body, to a tyrannising game?
If you would, there's little need to be a rover,
For St. Andrews is the abject city's name.
It is surely quite superfluous to mention,
To a person who has been here half an hour,
That Golf is what engrosses the attention
Of the people, with an all-absorbing power.
Rich and poor alike are smitten with the fever;
Their business and religion is to play;
And a man is scarcely deemed a true believer,
Unless he goes at least a round a day.
The city boasts an old and learned college,
Where you'd think the leading industry was Greek;
Even there the favoured instruments of knowledge
Are a driver and a putter and a cleek.
All the natives and the residents are patrons
Of this royal, ancient, irritating sport;
All the old men, all the young men, maids and matrons --
The universal populace, in short.
In the morning, when the feeble light grows stronger,
You may see the players going out in shoals;
And when night forbids their playing any longer,
They tell you how they did the different holes.
Golf, golf, golf -- is all the story!
In despair my overburdened spirit sinks,
Till I wish that every golfer was in glory,
And I pray the sea may overflow the links.
One slender, struggling ray of consolation
Sustains me, very feeble though it be:
There are two who still escape infatuation,
My friend M'Foozle's one, the other's me.
As I write the words, M'Foozle enters blushing,
With a brassy and an iron in his hand ....
This blow, so unexpected and so crushing,
Is more than I am able to withstand.
So now it but remains for me to die, sir.
Stay! There is another course I may pursue --
And perhaps upon the whole it would be wiser --
I will yield to fate and be a golfer too!
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 19, 2023
- 1:40 min read
- 135 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABAB CACA ADAD XEXE FGFG AHAH IJIJ CICI KLKL AMAM |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,763 |
Words | 329 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"The City of Golf" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/31042/the-city-of-golf>.
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