THE LOST BALL

Playing one day at the seaside, I was topping my balls on the tees,

And the sand and the bent were littered with fragments of double D's;

Piffle supreme I was playing, and varying “slice” with “pull,”

But I hit one ball a wallop like a kick of a Spanish bull.

It whistled its way towards Heaven in a rocket's magic flight;

It cancelled the crimson sunset like the shroud of a moonless night;

It knocked the paint off a rainbow and scattered the stars like bees;

And sped thro’ the stellar spaces as tho’ it would never cease.

It looped the loop like Pegoud in parabolic curves;

It was salve to my wounded feelings and balm to my ruffled nerves;

It clove my opponent's gizzard like the stab of a Lascar's knife;

And produced the hardest swearing I have ever heard in my life.

I have sought in the bent and the bushes that one magnificent ball;

It may be Antartic crystals were broken by its fall;

It may be that Death as Caddy may light on the spot it fell;

I may have holed out in Heaven or find myself trapped in Hell.