[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Heart of Spring (1919), Ballad and Lyrical Poems (1923), and Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson (1934).]
Petticoat Green
I would not ask of a joyful man
for his heart would be too cold;
And I would go on a long journey
to a country ripe and old:
I would like to walk where the mad folk went
and never a soul was mean;
— ’Twill all come easily, mournful man!
if you paint me a petticoat green.
Oh, every feud is a lifelong feud
and every fight is fair:
The girls have eyes and the men have blood
and the swords are sharp and bare:
The witches fight with the dairymaids
and the fairies still are seen:
— ’Twill all come easily, mournful man!
if you paint me a petticoat green.
For green indeed is a dear colour:
we learn to lisp thereon,
Till we grow too tall for our first fair love
and the glories all are gone;
And when at length we have footed it well
our eyes grow tender then:
We sit and talk when we may not walk,
we are close to the green again.
A petticoat is a tender thing,
tender as love or dew,
Perhaps it is piece of an angel’s garb
that has sometime fallen through;
For there be gates in the distant sky
that the elder seers have seen,
And you — you have known them, mournful man!
so paint me a petticoat green.
Paint me all that the children laugh
in a long white afternoon:
Paint me all that the old men know
when they croak to the setting moon:
Paint me flowers and the death of flowers
and the tenderlings that grew
Between the time of the north wind
and the kindness of the dew.
Paint me eyes on a holiday
and the long kiss of a bride:
Paint me ashes and dying men
and the shriek when a woman died:
Mournful man, there is love in you
but your big tears come between:
Grant me a favour, mournful man!
and paint me a petticoat green.
Paint me joy in a whistling dance
and gloom on a heavy hill:
Paint me reeds and a water-bird
and a matchless maiden’s will:
Paint me men who have laughed at death
and hope that is good to see:
— I know you have known it, mournful man!
you can beckon it up to me.
Paint me prisons of olden times
and the flight of the butterflies:
Paint me all that the madmen see
when they speak to the sullen skies:
Paint me rogues that are loth to die
and the sighing of honest men:
Paint me Youth that is weak and worn
and Age that is young again.
I would not ask of a joyful man
for his heart would be too cold;
But the love is deep in you, mournful man!
though your speech is white and old:
Paint me lilies and summer maids
and skeletons — all are clean —
’Twill all come easily, mournful man!
if you paint me a petticoat green.
Source:
Shaw Neilson, Heart of Spring, Sydney: The Bookfellow, 1919, pages 4-6
John Shaw Neilson, Ballad and Lyrical Poems, Sydney: Bookfellow in Australia, 1923, pages 80-82
John Shaw Neilson (edited by R. H. Croll), Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson, Melbourne: Lothian Publishing Company, 1934, pages 4-6
Editor’s notes:
lisp = (archaic) to speak imperfectly, to speak with mispronunciations (such as occurs with a young child learning to speak), to speak in a childish manner; can also refer to a speech defect where a speaker pronounces the letters “s” and “z” as a “th” sound (e.g. “yes” is pronounced as “yeth”)
loth = reluctant or unwilling; a variant spelling of “loath” (distinct from “loathe”, being to detest or hate)
seer = someone who foretells the future; a mystic with supernatural insight into the future; a wise man; a prophet (in the modern sense, an expert who predicts the economic, political, or social future)
tenderling = a young child (also may refer to someone who has been mollycoddled or who is weak or effeminate; also may refer to a budding tip of one of a deer’s antlers)
’twill = (archaic) a contraction of “it will”
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