Ballade to a prehistorian/
Ballade to Gordon Childe

When sounds of verbal conflict fill the air,
And archaeologists, that curious few,
Debate some problem or in turn prepare
To build whole cultures on the slightest clue—
Then, soon or late, is heard the speaker who
Says to the questing novice—shy, forlorn
And diffident— 'I can't explain to you;
You'll find it in a footnote in The Dawn'.

Are Frankfort's views of Erösd really fair
And what says Peet of Anghelu Ruju?
What kind of necklace did the Minyans wear
And what did Blegen find at Korakou?
Is Studie o českém neolithu
The book to read on harpoon-heads of horn?
Is Tallgren's Fatyanovo theory true?
You'll find it in a footnote in The Dawn.

All secrets of the past are here laid bare—
What beer the Beaker folk were wont to brew,
The answer to a Lausitz maiden's prayer,
The recipe for Maglemose fish-glue
The style of beards the Michelsbergers grew,
The songs they sang when gathering in the corn
At harvest-homes in Late Danubian II—
You'll find it in a footnote in The Dawn.

Envoi

Prince (to your learning be all honour due!)
How will eternity treat man, its pawn?
Leaving the past, do you then turn and view
Man's end as but a footnote to his Dawn?

ca 1934-35

NOTES

• 3 July 1936: letter from SP to Peggy: '. . . Childe [Vere Gordon Childe (1892–1957) Australian, eminent European prehistorian, colleague, sponsor and friend of SP. Eds] was delighted with the Ballade, of which I sent him a copy.'
• Charles Thomas (letter of 10-i-1998) adds, re SP's attribution of authorship printed below the poem in Sally Green's Prehistorian (1981, 159): 'So SP told Sally'.
• In Green (above) the poem is titled 'Ballade to a Great Prehistorian'