A Lay of the Links
A Lay of the Links is a poem written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in To-Day on 11 november 1893.
Music
Music translated by AI from the original music sheet below.
Editions
- in To-Day (11 november 1893 [UK]) 2 illustrations
- in To-Day (14 april 1894 [UK]) music sheets by Cecil Stanley
- in Nation (24 november 1898 [US])
- in Songs of Action (1898-1916, Smith, Elder & Co. [UK])
- in Songs of Action (august 1898, Charles Scribner's Sons [US])
- in Songs of Action (september 1898, Doubleday, Page & Co. [US])
- A Lay of the Links (may 1900, Chappell & Co. [UK])
- in Songs of Action (1918-1920, John Murray [UK])
- in The Bristol Herald Courier (28 june 1921 [US])
- in The Sacramento Bee (29 june 1921 [US])
- in The Poems of Arthur Conan Doyle (1922-1928, John Murray [UK])
- in Daily Mail (5 june 1926 [UK]) 8 first verses only as Golfing Song
A Lay of the Links
It's up and away from our work to-day,
For the breeze sweeps over the down;
And it's hey for a game where the gorse blossoms flame,
And the bracken is bronzing to brown.
With the turf 'neath our tread and the blue overhead,
And the song of the lark in the whin;
There's the flag and the green, with the bunkers between—
Now will you be over or in?
The doctor may come, and we'll teach him to know
A tee where no tannin can lurk;
The soldier may come, and we'll promise to show
Some hazards a soldier may shirk;
The statesman may joke, as he tops every stroke,
That at last he is high in his aims;
And the clubman will stand with a club in his hand
That is worth every club in St. James'.
The palm and the leather come rarely together,
Gripping the driver's haft,
And it's good to feel the jar of the steel
And the spring of the hickory shaft.
Why trouble or seek for the praise of a clique?
A cleek here is common to all;
And the lie that might sting is a very small thing
When compared with the lie of the ball.
Come youth and come age, from the study or stage,
From Bar or from Bench—high and low!
A green you must use as a cure for the blues—
You drive them away as you go.
We're outward bound on a long, long round,
And it's time to be up and away:
If worry and sorrow come back with the morrow,
At least we'll be happy to-day.
Music Sheets
-
p. 316
-
p. 317