John Dekker's Day

10:55AM - An Old Master

And the language! Oh, the language! Seemed to me I must be dreamin';
While the wondrous words and phrases only genius could produce
Roared and rumbled, fast and faster, in the throat of that Old Master —
Oaths and curses tipped with lightning, cracklin' flames of fierce abuse.

Then we knew the man before us was a Master of our callin';
One of those great lords of language gone for ever from Out-back;
Heroes of an ancient order; men who punched across the border;
Vanished giants of the sixties; puncher-princes of the track.

- from An Old Master, by C. J. Dennis.