Poetry

Elegy

COMPOSE!) ON STOKE POGES GOLF COURSE ON SUNDAY MORNLNG.

0 where are Chloe's sweethearts gone, This golden summer's morn upon ?

Fie, lie, what are they doing, They, who should be a-wooing ?

See Strephon there upon the heath Profess his self-inflicted faith.

See, at his God's stern call, How he pursues The unoffending, small, White, suffering, patient Ball.

See how he still must follow, Frenzied, fanatical, o'er hill and hollow ; And how, with cunning ruse,

He pilots it towards its final goal—

The Great, the Good, the All-Sufficing Hole.

And what of Corin ? Hark ! the bell, Tolling to set our minds on Hell, Has draWn him to the Church

In solemn search

Of ultimate Truth, of Goodness infinite.

An hour there he'll sit, Seeking the steep and narrow track, The straight fair way that leads not back.

He shuns the hazards and the wiles With which old Satan's craft His path beguiles, And with relentless shaft He drives his small, white, unoffending Soul Towards the Great, the Good, the Heavenly Hole.

While both her lovers thus do play, What shall poor Chloe do to-day ?

With this one dully plod, Or bow to that one's God ?

Watch Strephon do the round in ninety-seven, Or Corin foozie his approach to Heaven ?

JAN STRETHER.