Triumph



Why am I full of joy although
     It drizzles on the links?
Why am I buying Veuve Cliquot,
     And setting up the drinks?
Why stand I like a prince amid
     My pals and envy none?
Ye gods of golf! Today I did
     A Hole in One.

I drove my ball to heaven high,
     It over-topped the hill;
I tried to guess how it would lie,
     If on the fairway still.
I climbed the rise, so sure I'd hit
     It straight towards the green:
I looked and looked,--no trace of it
     Was to be seen.

My partner putted to the pin,
     Then hoarse I heard him call;
And lo! So snug the hole within
     Gleamed up my ball.
Yea, it was mine. Oh what a thrill!
     What dandy drive I'd done
By luck,--well, grant a little skill,
     I'd holed in one.

Say that my score is eighty odd,
     And though I won't give up,--
Say that as round the course I plod,
     I never win a cup.
Say that my handicap's nineteen,
     And of my game make fun,
But holler: 'On the seventh green
     HE HOLED IN ONE.'

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

59 sec read
67

Quick analysis:

Scheme XABABCBC DEDEBFBF GHGHECEC BIBIFCFC
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 964
Words 193
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8

Robert William Service

Robert William Service was a poet and writer sometimes referred to as the Bard of the Yukon He is best-known for his writings on the Canadian North including the poems The Shooting of Dan McGrew The Law of the Yukon and The Cremation of Sam McGee His writing was so expressive that his readers took him for a hard-bitten old Klondike prospector not the later-arriving bank clerk he actually was Robert William Service was born 16 January 1874 in Preston England but also lived in Scotland before emigrating to Canada in 1894 Service went to the Yukon Territory in 1904 as a bank clerk and became famous for his poems about this region which are mostly in his first two books of poetry He wrote quite a bit of prose as well and worked as a reporter for some time but those writings are not nearly as well known as his poems He travelled around the world quite a bit and narrowly escaped from France at the beginning of the Second World War during which time he lived in Hollywood California He died 11 September 1958 in France Incidentally he played himself in a movie called The Spoilers starring John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich more…

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