AN APOLOGY TO THE BENCH.
Humbly addressed to T.E.S.
If ever, where you hold the Seat of Doom,
I stand, my Lord, before you at the Bar,
And my forensic fame, a virgin bloom,
Lies in your awful hands to make or mar,
Let it not prejudice my case, I pray,
If you should call to mind a previous meeting
When on a champion course the other day
I gave your Lordship four strokes and a beating.
I own it savoured of contempt of court,
Hinted of disrespect toward the Bench,
That I should chuckle when your pitch was short
Or smile to see you in the sanded trench;
But Golf (so I extenuate my sin)
Brings all men level, like the greens they putt on;
One common bunker makes the whole world kin,
And Bar may scrap with Beak, and I with Scr-tt-n.
Nor did I give myself superior airs;
I made allowance for defective sight;
"The bandage which impartial Justice wears
Leaves you," I said, "a stranger to the light;
Habituated to the sword and scales,
If you commit some pardonable blunder,
If" (I remarked) "your nerve at moments fails
With grosser ironmongery, where's the wonder?"
So may the Law's High Majesty o'erlook
My rash presumption; may the memory die
Of how I won the match (and further took
The liberty of mopping up the bye);
Remember just a happy morning's round,
Also the fact that this alleged old fogey
Played at the last hole like a book and downed
The barely human feat of Colonel Bogey.
O.S.