On The Links – Golf Poetry

On The Links – Golf Poetry

ON THE LINKS 

SHE is surprising fair, and so 
I linger still her face to see, 
And oft I sigh, for well I know 
She dreams of golf and not of me. 
I seek to babble and be gay ; 
Her eye from mine no rapture drinks ; 
I cannot lure her thoughts away; 
Her mind is ever on the links. 

I brought a book; 'twas leather bound; 
I'd never sighted it before; 
Its pages yellow, yet profound, 
Were filled with zoologic lore. 
"What creatures, pray, do you like best?" 
Quoth I. (My voice to pathos sinks.) 
She smiles and says, "More than the rest, 
I think I should prefer the lynx." 

An hour we wandered through the grove; 
I said that I'd her caddie be 
If she would but consent to rove 
A little while that way with me. 
The birds sang loud. "What birds," I cry, 
"Are sweetest to your ears?" The minx, 
Without a pause, gave me reply: 
"My favorite birds are bob-o-links."
 
And then I turned to literature. 
My heart awoke to cynic glee, 
For on that topic I was sure 
Her thought by mine must guided be. 
"What books most please your gentle taste?" 
Her steadfast eye she never winks. 
I'm vanquished. I retire in haste. 
She simply answers, "Maeterlinck's." 

by Philander Johnson, in Lyrics of the Links, 1921. Johnson (1866 – 1939) was a Washington Evening Star staff member for 47 years.

“Maeterlinck’s”, in the final line is a reference to Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Materlinck, a Belgian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1922.