y, Philosophy, and Mendacity Culled by Caddies to the
Muse Whose Metrical Feet Have Wandered Into the Debatable Territory
That Lies Between Fiction and Fact.

THE FANTOM OF THE LINKS.

By Jessie Pope.

When morning crowns the distant downs
With veil of azure gossam;
When black bat wheels, and twilight steals
The blush from every blossom--
Hist! to a sudden mysterious click,
The caddie shudders and shrinks,
The scarlet-jacketed heart beats thick--
'Tis the fantom of the links.

The first was he on the family tree
Of canny professional laddies,
In Pluto's halls he hungers for balls--
They say he's a weakness for caddies.
Hist! when you feel a thrill in the breeze,
A whisper that rises and sinks,
When there looms a shape by the misty trees--
'Tis the fantom of the links.

Then fly the green tho' fit and keen
To drive like soaring rocket,
You'll search till dark for balls you mark--
They're in his intangible pocket.
Back from the cliff and the shimmering bay,
The dune and the pebble-strewn brinks,
Mortal, you'll get the worst of the play
With the fantom of the links.

When through the gray the dawning day
Slants over gorse and heather,
When sun has set and grass is wet.
And mist-wreaths twine together--
List to a sudden mysterious click,
The caddie shudders and shrinks,
The scarlet-jacketed heart beats thick--
'Tis the fantom of the links.

_London Queen._

THE LOST BALL.

Standing one day on the golf-links,
I was weary and ill at ease;
And I baffled and foozled idly
Over the whins and tees.
I know not what I was dreaming,
Or where I was rubbering then;
But I swiped that ball, of a sudden,
With the force of two score men.

It sped through the crimson twilight
Like a shot from a ten-inch gun;
And it passed from my fevered vision
To the realm of the vanished sun;
It chasseed over the bunker,
It caromed hazard and hill;
It went like a thing infernal--
I suppose it is going still.

It shied each perplexing stymie
With infinite nerve and ease;
And bored right on through the landscape
As if it were loath to cease.
I have sought--but I seek it vainly--
That ball of the strenuous pace,
That went from the sole of my nibli