Famous Golf Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Golf poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous golf poems. These examples illustrate what a famous golf poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Edward Taylor
This is the hardest part:
When I came back to life
I was a good family dog
and not too friendly to strangers.
I got a thirty-five dollar raise
in salary, and through the pea-soup fogs
I drove the General, and introduced him
at rallies. I had a totalitarian approach
and was a massive boost to his popularity.
I did my best to reduce...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
(16th January 1949)
I thank whatever gods may be
For all the happiness that's mine;
That I am festive, fit and free
To savour women, wit and wine;
That I may game of golf enjoy,
And have a formidable drive:
In short, that I'm a gay old boy
Though I be
Seventy-and-five.
My daughter thinks. because I'm old
(I'm not a crock, when all is said),
I mustn't let my...Read more of this...
by
John Betjeman
How straight it flew, how long it flew,
It clear'd the rutty track
And soaring, disappeared from view
Beyond the bunker's back -
A glorious, sailing, bounding drive
That made me glad I was alive.
And down the fairway, far along
It glowed a lonely white;
I played an iron sure and strong
And clipp'd it out of sight,
And spite of grassy banks between
I knew I'd find it...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Dawn off the Foreland--the young flood making
Jumbled and short and steep--
Black in the hollows and bright where it's breaking--
Awkward water to sweep.
"Mines reported in the fairway,
"Warn all traffic and detain.
"'Sent up Unity, Cralibel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden
Gain."
Noon off the Foreland--the first ebb making
Lumpy and strong in the bight.
Boom after boom, and...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
There here are words of radical advice for a young man looking for a job;
Young man, be a snob.
Yes, if you are in search of arguments against starting at the bottom,
Why I've gottem.
Let the personnel managers differ;
It,s obvious that you will get on faster at the top than at the bottom because
there are more people at the bottom than...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
Behold, my child, this touching scene,
The golfer on the golfing-green;
Pray mark his legs’ uncanny swing,
The golf-walk is a gruesome thing!
See how his arms and shoulders ride
Above his legs in haughty pride,
While over bunker, hill and lawn
His feet, relentless, drag him on.
And does the man walk always so?
Nay! nay I my child, and eke, oh! no!
It is a gait he...Read more of this...
by
Charles Bukowski
we have everything and we have nothing
and some men do it in churches
and some men do it by tearing butterflies
in half
and some men do it in Palm Springs
laying it into butterblondes
with Cadillac souls
Cadillacs and butterflies
nothing and everything,
the face melting down to the last puff
in a cellar in Corpus Christi.
there's something for the touts, the nuns,
the grocery clerks and you...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
The Junior God looked from his place
In the conning towers of heaven,
And he saw the world through the span of space
Like a giant golf-ball driven.
And because he was bored, as some gods are,
With high celestial mirth,
He clutched the reins of a shooting star,
And he steered it down to earth.
The Junior God, 'mid leaf and bud,
...Read more of this...
by
James Tate
Some people go their whole lives
without ever writing a single poem.
Extraordinary people who don't hesitate
to cut somebody's heart or skull open.
They go to baseball games with the greatest of ease.
and play a few rounds of golf as if it were nothing.
These same people stroll into a church
as if that were a natural part of life.
Investing money is...Read more of this...
by
James Henry Leigh Hunt
I have been reading Pomfret's "Choice" this spring,
A pretty kind of--sort of--kind of thing,
Not much a verse, and poem none at all,
Yet, as they say, extremely natural.
And yet I know not. There's an art in pies,
In raising crusts as well as galleries;
And he's the poet, more or less, who knows
The charm that...Read more of this...
by
John Betjeman
Miss J.Hunter Dunn, Miss J.Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!
Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad...Read more of this...
by
David Lehman
I'm a very average person,
and I think most people are.
I vote with the common man.
I have two kids, a boy and a girl.
Last Sunday I played golf with the boss.
Hey, it beats working.
I'm his wife. I may be brainless but
I'm her husband. I played golf with her
Last Sunday I played golf with the boss
and it was the first warm...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
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...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Ye lovers of the picturesque, if ye wish to drown your grief,
Take my advice, and visit the ancient town of Crieff;
The climate is bracing, and the walks lovely to see.
Besides, ye can ramble over the district, and view the beautiful scenery.
The town is admirably situated from the cold winter winds,
And the visitors, during their stay there, great comfort...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Husbands are things that wives have to get used to putting up with.
And with whom they breakfast with and sup with.
They interfere with the discipline of nurseries,
And forget anniversaries,
And when they have been particularly remiss
They think they can cure everything with a great big kiss,
And when you tell them about something awful they have done they just
look unbearably patient...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
"Hullo, young Jones! with your tie so gay
And your pen behind your ear;
Will you mark my cheque in the usual way?
For I'm overdrawn, I fear."
Then you look at me in a manner bland,
As you turn your ledger's leaves,
And you hand it back with a soft white hand,
And the air of a man who grieves. . . .
"Was it you,...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
Many a miner has gone
into the deep pit
to receive the dust of a kiss,
an ore-cell.
He has gone with his lamp
full of mole eyes
deep deep and has brought forth
Jesus at Gethsemane.
Body of moss, body of glass,
body of peat, how sharp
you lie, emerald as heavy
as a golf course, ruby as...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Because I have ten thousand pounds I sit upon my stern,
And leave my living tranquilly for other folks to earn.
For in some procreative way that isn't very clear,
Ten thousand pounds will breed, they say, five hundred every year.
So as I have a healthy hate of economic strife,
I mean to stand aloof from it the balance of my life.
And yet...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Ancient town of Leith, most wonderful to be seen,
With your many handsome buildings, and lovely links so green,
And the first buildings I may mention are the Courthouse and Town Hall,
Also Trinity House, and the Sailors' Home of Call.
Then as for Leith Fort, it was erected in 1779, which is really grand,
And which is now the artillery headquarters in...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
IN the cool of the night time
The clocks pick off the points
And the mainsprings loosen.
They will need winding.
One of these days…
they will need winding.
Rabelais in red boards,
Walt Whitman in green,
Hugo in ten-cent paper covers,
Here they stand on shelves
In the cool of the night time
And there is nothing…
To be said against them…
Or for them…
In the cool of the night...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
It was the Bondi golfing man
Drove off from the golf house tee,
And he had taken his little daughter
To bear him company.
"Oh, Father, why do you swing the club
And flourish it such a lot?"
"You watch it fly o'er the fences high!"
And he tried with a brassey shot.
"Oh, Father, why did you hit...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
I CANNOT think that Death will press his claim
To snuff you out or put you off your game:
You¡¯ll still contrive to play your steady round
Though hurricanes may sweep the dismal ground
And darkness blur the sandy-skirted green 5
Where silence gulfs the shot you strike so clean.
Saint Andrew guard your ghost old David Cleek
And send you home to Fifeshire...Read more of this...
by
Godfrey Mutiso Gorry
Weak but alive
dying yet still alive
huge eyes
round like golf balls
white as bones
Bony framed
fleshless
Pus in orifices
worms
teeth, white teeth
skull and bones.
Am sorry for life
Oh this pain deeper than
Only death can save
My friend, I am sorry
That you pain
When you sleep, wake
Pain, blindness
Damn anguish – no thoughts emerge
When engulfed by pain
Such heart is dead
Am sorry;
Oh this life! A taboo
You will die...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
All ye tourists who wish to be away
From the crowded city for a brief holiday;
The town of Nairn is worth a visit, I do confess,
And it's only about fifteen miles from Inverness.
And in the summer season it's a very popular bathing-place,
And the visitors from London and Edinburgh finds solace,
As they walk along the yellow sand beach inhaling fresh...Read more of this...
by
James Tate
This is the hardest part:
When I came back to life
I was a good family dog
and not too friendly to strangers.
I got a thirty-five dollar raise
in salary, and through the pea-soup fogs
I drove the General, and introduced him
at rallies. I had a totalitarian approach
and was a massive boost to his popularity.
I did my best to reduce...Read more of this...
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