Yesterday

Yesterday

Original Text
Edgar A. Guest, Just Folks (Chicago: Reilly & Lee, 1917), pp. 79-80. PS 3513 U45J77 1917 c. 1 ROBA
2    And played him club for club;
3'Tis scarce a year since I began
5But this I've noticed as we strayed
7No one with me has ever played
8    As he did yesterday.
10    Together as we walk,
11Till we up to the ball arrive,
12    I get the same old talk:
13"To-day there's something wrong with me,
14    Just what I cannot say.
15Would you believe I got a three
16    For this hole--yesterday?"
20    The very way I do.
22    And then they sadly say:
24    When I played--yesterday!"
25I have no yesterdays to count,
26    No good work to recall;
27Each morning sees hope proudly mount,
28    Each evening sees it fall.
29And in the locker room at night,
30    When men discuss their play,
31I hear them and I wish I might
32    Have seen them--yesterday.
33Oh, dear old yesterday! What store
34    Of joys for men you hold!
35I'm sure there is no day that's more
36    Remembered or extolled.
37I'm off my task myself a bit,
38    My mind has run astray;
39I think, perhaps, I should have writ
40    These verses--yesterday.

Notes

1] links: golf course, especially along the seashore, where the holes often run end-to-end outwards in one direction and come end-to-end back to the clubhouse. Back to Line
4] dub: clumsy player, unskilled, apt to club the ball into the ground so that it runs feebly along the ground for a short way. Back to Line
6] the bunkered way: the side of the hole with bunkers or sand traps catching crooked shots. Back to Line
9] the drive: the first shot on most holes, taken with a wood (now metal) driver or 1-wood, the longest-hitting club. Back to Line
17] top: to hit halfway up the ball and drive it downwards along the ground for a short distance.
slice: to hit the ball from outside-in, imparting (for a right-handed golfer) a clockwise spin that causes the ball to sail off to the right. Back to Line
18] fail to follow through: jab at the ball, stopping short of a full swing. Back to Line
19] brassies: 2-woods, second-longest-hitting club--a term not much in use. Back to Line
21] six and seven: strokes over par, which is 3, 4, or 5. Back to Line
23] foozled: hit at the ball so weakly or badly that it moved but little. Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Form