by Stevie Smith
‘How is this when thou art living
Foolish boy, in wrath beguiled?’
‘Ask me not,’ he said, and moving
Passed into the distance dim.
High the sun stood in the heavens,
But no shadow followed him.
Eng.
What has happened to the young men of Eng.?
Why are they so lovey-dovey
so sad and so domesticated
So sad and so philoprogenitive
So sad and without sensuality?
They love with a ci-devant feminine affection
They see in their dreams a little home
And kiddies
Ah the kiddies
They would not mind having babies:
It is unkind
Of Nature to lag behind.
Death Bereaves our Common Mother Nature Grieves for my Dead Brother
Lamb dead, dead lamb,
He was, I am,
Separation by a tense
Baulks my eyes’ indifference.
Can I see the lately dead
And not bend a sympathetic head?
Can I see lamb dead as mutton
And not care a solitary button?
Aubade
My dove, my doe,
I love you so,
I cannot will not
Let you go,
’Tis not the day lights yonder sky
It is too soon
I hear the cock’s discordant cry,
He doodles to the moon.
It is not day
I say
It is the moon.
Alas, my love, it is the day,
Born twin to sun, but opening first
The womb of night.
There lies the day,
Her cheeks are gray,
Alas so soon it is the day.
And now in agony her dam will try
To bring forth sun, and in fulfilment die.
No easy birth is here,
Before our eyes
Night bleeds
And, born caesareanwise,
Her son in flaming gear
Comes forth and her succeeds.
Once more for man the heavenly twins are born,
Farewell, my love, adieu, it is the dawn.
Bag-Snatching in Dublin
Sisley
Walked so nicely
With footsteps so discreet
To see her pass
You’d never guess
She walked upon the street
Down where the Liffy waters’ turgid flood
Churns up to greet the ocean-driven mud,
A bruiser in a fix
Murdered her for 6/6.
The River Deben
All the waters of the river Deben
Go over my head to the last wave even
Such a death were sweet to seven times seven.
Death sits in the boat with me
His face is shrouded but he smiles I see
The time is not yet, he will not come so readily.
But he smiles and I smile it is pleasant in the boat at night
There is no moon rising but from the east a light
Shines in the sky, is it dawn or dawn’s twilight?
Over here the waters are dark as a deep chasm
Shadowed by cliffs of volcanic spasm
So dark so dark is the waves’ fashion.
But the oars dip I am rowing they dip and scatter
The phosphorescence in a sudden spatter
Of light that is more actual than a piece of matter.
Up the Deben we row I row towards Waldringfield
It is a long way yet, my arms ache but will not yield
In this physical tiredness there is a happy shield.
Oh happy Deben, oh happy night, and night’s companion Death,
What exultation what ecstasy is in thy breath
It is as salt as the salt silt that lies beneath.
Flow tidal river flow, draw wind from the east,
Smile pleasant Death, smile Death in darkness blessed,
But tarry day upon the crack of dawn. Thou comest unwished.
Death Came to Me
Death came to me and said
‘Which will you choose?
Use one
Or all of these to summon me.
I’ll come.’
And with a smile he’d gone.
There lay a knife
A labelled flask a gun.
I took the knife
Its cruel edge would bite
Into my flesh
Had I the resolution or the art
To bear the smart
And drive it to my heart?
Not I. I say
I love my flesh too much
For such
A way.
I took the flask and turned the label up –
Eastern Syrop – what a stirrup cup
For my short ride into eternity
And what a shame
To give a lordly drug so base a name
That better than this bottleful
Had decked a novelette by Mrs Hull.
For underneath the superscription lurked I knew
With pulses quickening and the blood thickening
For fear in every vein the deadly strychnine
It paralysed the heart at once they said, but I
Had not the heart to try.
I took the revolver in my hand and broke it open.
A Webley, service pattern, is a useful weapon
I liked it for the magazine chock-full
Of ammunition, liked the full
Shimmer of its barrel in the firelight’s glimmer.
It had an air of quiet distinction lying there.
The handmaid of extinction
I snapped it to,
It weighed about a ton,
And two
Were on the trigger
Phew
I put it to my head
And now I’m dead.
No Respect
I have no respect for you
For you would not tell the truth about your grief
But laughed at it
When the first pang was past
And made a thing of nothing.
You said
That what had been
Had never been
That what was
Was not:
You have a light mind
And a coward’s soul.
The Reason
My life is vile
I hate it so
I’ll wait a while
And then I’ll go.
Why wait at all?
Hope springs alive,
Good may befall
I yet may thrive.
It is because I can’t make up my mind
If God is good, impotent or unkind.
I Like to Play with Him
I like to play with him
He would be so lovely to play with
He is so solemn sensitive conceited
He would be so lovely to play with
I could pretend
Say so-and-so
and so-and-so
Watch his responses
How’d he take that today
And this tomorrow,
Mood, tense, you see
I’d conjugate His Inexcellency.
Oh on that evening you were
So charming enchanting touching
Lost wounded and betrayed
Oh that should have been only the beginning.
Analysand
He chases his tail
Like a puppy-fool
And wonders it tastes stale
The puppy-fool.
All thoughts that are turned inwards to their source
Bring one to self-hatred and remorse
Their punishment is suicide of course.
But first he’ll tread
A calvary
From bed to bed
Of
misery
And lying thinking on his bed of stone
No sleep will come to him he is alone
For evermore with every aching bone.
His spirit flags
His body slumps
His spirit nags
His mental dumps.
Self dedicated to self scrutiny
His every moment’s an eternity
Of irritation and monotony.
For fuss and fret
His tears fall down
His brow is set
In savage frown.
Is it surprising Reader do you think?
Would you expect to find him in the pink?
Who’s solely occupied with his own mental stink?
All Things Pass
All things pass
Love and mankind is grass.
Sunt Leones
The lions who ate the Christians on the sand of the arena
By indulging native appetites played what has now been seen a
Not entirely negligible part
In consolidating at the very start
The position of the Early Christian Church.
Initiatory rites are always bloody
And the lions, it appears
From contemporary art, made a study
Of dyeing Coliseum sands a ruddy
Liturgically sacrificial hue
And if the Christians felt a little blue –
Well people being eaten often do.
Theirs was the death, and theirs the crown undying,
A state of things which must be satisfying.
My point which up to this has been obscured
Is that it was the lions who procured
By chewing up blood gristle flesh and bone
The martyrdoms on which the Church has grown.
I only write this poem because I thought it rather looked
As if the part the lions played was being overlooked.
By lions’ jaws great benefits and blessings were begotten
And so our debt to Lionhood must never be forgotten.
I do not Speak
I do not ask for mercy for understanding for peace
And in these heavy days I do not ask for release
I do not ask that suffering shall cease.
I do not pray to God to let me die
To give an ear attentive to my cry
To pause in his marching and not hurry by.
I do not ask for anything I do not speak
I do not question and I do not seek
I used to in the day when I was weak.
Now I am strong and lapped in sorrow
As in a coat of magic mail and borrow
From Time today and care not for tomorrow.
Lord Mope
What shall we say of this curious young man?
Scion of aristocracy sycophant of eld
Sitting at the feet of the old men because they are old
Warming his shivering behind at their gutted flame…
Brace up oh bunny heart, that man’s no sage
Though the years heap on his head, be not deceived.
Each year is but a weight
To sky his empty pate
Nearer to heaven’s gate
Nearer his god to him
(His god of prejudice and whim).
Oh fearful young man shivering ridiculously
What shall I say to give you heart oh poor young man?
No shield is in the old
Better to be young and cold
(Shivering ridiculously in your four-and-twenty years)
Better to be young, a Cry-baby, a Pet,
Than to be an old man, mouthing in a fret.
Better to be young and let the cold tears fall and ravage
Than to be an Old Boy, senile, simian and savage.
Feminine Charm
O never girl beneath the skies of Italy
Or maiden singing in the vales of Sicily
Or matron carding wool in Thessaly
Or skivvy washing up in Beverley
Gave man such joy as Bessie, Bessie Leigh,
Daughter of Mr and of Mrs Leigh.
To the Dog Belvoir
whom I saw in a Dream Push Baby N. from under a Brewer’s Dray and Die in His Place
The stricken Belvoir raised a paw and said:
I die a perfect gentle quadruped.
Never Again
Never again will I weep
And wring my hands
And beat my hands against the wall
Because
Me nolentem fata trahunt
But
When I have had enough
I will arise
And go unto my Father
And I will say to Him:
Father, I have had enough.
Little Boy Lost
The wood was rather old and dark
The witch was very ugly
And if it hadn’t been for father
Walking there so smugly
I never should have followed
The beckoning of her finger.
Ah me how long ago it was
And still I linger
Under the ever interlacing beeches
Over a carpet of moss
I lift my hand but it never reaches
To where the breezes toss
The sun-kissed
leaves above.
The sun?
Beware.
The sun never comes here.
Round about and round I go
Up and down and to and fro
The woodlouse hops upon the tree
Or should do but I really cannot see.
Happy fellow. Why can’t I be
Happy as he?
The wood grows darker every day
It’s not a bad place in a way
But I lost the way
Last Tuesday
Did I love father, mother, home?
Not very much; but now they’re gone
I think of them with kindly toleration
Bred inevitably of separation.
Really if I could find some food
I should be happy enough in this wood
But darker days and hungrier I must spend
Till hunger and darkness make an end.
Does No Love Last?
I stand I fall
The depths appal
Upon my knees upon the bridge I fall.
Far down below
I see in fancy
My body spread
That in a frenzy
Down I cast.
’Tis broken now and bloody.
Does no love last?
Death of the Dog Belvoir
Belvoir thy coat was not more golden than thy heart
That beats no more
Now thy fled spirit
Delicate and suave
Thy virtue’s core
Above the grave must soar.
Alas for baronet bereft
Of noble dog and left
To bear the mourner’s part.
Let funeral smart
And dirge
Be all my song
And my song’s urge
Ding dong.
For nobler heart beat never in more noble breast
And of beasts best
Thou with the least
In Death art dresst.
Farewell
Ding dong
Dear dog so ends my song.
Angel of Grace
I was talking one day
To a lady gay
When my Guardian Angel
Plucked me away:
Where can she be
Oh where does she wander
That lady of whom
I grow fonder and fonder?
Freddy
Nobody knows what I feel about Freddy
I cannot make anyone understand
I love him sub specie aeternitatis
I love him out of hand.
I don’t l
ove him so much in the restaurants that’s a fact
To get him hobnob with my old pub chums needs too much tact
He don’t love them and they don’t love him
In the pub lub lights they say Freddy very dim.
But get him alone on the open saltings
Where the sea licks up to the fen
He is his and my own heart’s best
World without end ahem.
People who say we ought to get married ought to get smacked:
Why should we do it when we can’t afford it and have ourselves whacked?
Thank you kind friends and relations thank you,
We do very well as we do.
Oh what do I care for the pub lub lights
And the friends I love so well –
There’s more in the way I feel about Freddy
Than a friend can tell.
But all the same I don’t care much for his meelyoo I mean
I don’t anheimate mich in the ha-ha well-off suburban scene
Where men are few and hearts go tumptytum
In the tennis club lub lights poet very dumb.
But there never was a boy like Freddy
For a haystack ivory’s tower of bliss
Where speaking sub specie humanitatis
Freddy and me can kiss.
Exiled from his meelyoo
Exiled from mine
There’s all Tom Tiddler’s time pocket
For his love and mine.
Appetite
Let me know
Let me know
Let me go
Let me go
Let me have him
Let me have him
How I love him
How I love him.
From My Notes for a Series of Lectures on Murder
It is not difficult to kill
Your enemy if you’ve sufficient will
But murderers are often in a hurry
And simply will not take the time to bury
The murderee. I’ll indicate tomorrow
Just why this course is not for you to follow.
Is it Wise?
Is it wise
To hug misery
To make a song of Melancholy
To weave a garland of sighs
To abandon hope wholly?
No, it is not wise.
Is it wise
To love Mortality
To make a song of Corruptibility
A chain of linked lies
To bind Mutability?
No, it is not wise.
Is it wise
To endure
To call up Old Fury
And Pain for a martyr’s dowry
When Death’s a prize
Easy to carry?
No, it is not wise.
This Englishwoman
This Englishwoman is so refined
She has no bosom and no behind.
Lord Barrenstock
Lord Barrenstock and Epicene,
What’s it to me that you have been
In your pursuit of interdicted joys
Seducer of a hundred little boys?
Your sins are red about your head
And many people wish you dead.
You trod the widow in the mire.
Wronged the son, deceived the sire.
You put a fence about the land