“An Old Master” – verses 11, 12 and 14

October 31st, 2015 | C. J. Dennis, News, Poems for adults

Here are verses 11 and 12, and the first two and a half lines of verse 14. (Verse 13 is out of sequence, and comes later.)

Verse 11
Line 1
“Then” replaced by “Now”

Line 2
“at” replaced by “to” and “word” replaced by “crack”

Line 3
“While the whip sang loud and faster for they knew they’d met a master” replaced by “And he kept his cursin under till old ‘Brindle’ made a blunder”

Line 4
“Then Dad started cursin, softly first and then he opened out” replaced by “I thought all hell had hit me and the master opened out”

Verse 12
Line 1
“I may live to be a hundred” replaced by “I have heard some noble cursers”
(There are some other cross-outs here, such as “top notch cursers” and “fancy”.)

Line 3
“Trimmed with frills and decorations, but filled with fancy exclamations” replaced by “Full of fancy exclamations trimmed with frills and decorations”

Line 4
“But it was mere childish prattle” replaced by “But their talk was childish prattle”

Verse 14
Line 1
“…that we were lookin’ at a…” replaced by “…the man before us was a…”

Line 2
“Of a class that’s gone forever, lords they of whip and tongue” replaced by “One of those great lords of language, gone forever from out back”

Line 3
“the” replaced by “an”

As you can see, the corrections are becoming more frequent and substantial as the poem reaches its climax.