by Stevie Smith
This petal holds a clue
The face it shows
But too well it knows
Who I am tender to.
Tender only to one,
Last petal’s latest breath
Cries out aloud
From the icy shroud
His name, his name is Death.
O Happy Dogs of England
O happy dogs of England
Bark well as well you may
If you lived anywhere else
You would not be so gay.
O happy dogs of England
Bark well at errand boys
If you lived anywhere else
You would not be allowed to make such an infernal noise.
Darling Daughters
Darling daughters, listen to your mother,
I must go away and leave you to each other,
And one shall marry a rich man
And one shall go on an excursion to the Isle of Man
And one shall find her way home if she can.
The Bishops of the Church of England
I admire the Bishops of the Church of England
No man can be a Bishop of the Church of England
And a fool.
A man can be a Bishop of the Church of England
And a knave.
But
Fortunately
Few if any of the Bishops of the Church of England
Are men of ill will.
They do their best
To resolve wisely
To govern effectively.
They are the butt of the ignoramus,
Of the sentimentalist,
Of the man who makes
Of his own bad temper and incompetency
A Movement for the Amelioration of the Sufferings
Of the Oppressed Members of the Lower Middle Classes.
The Toll of the Roads
The angels wept to see poor Tolly dead
He was a harmless simple creature without a thought in his head.
Oh what is come upon him to make the road his death-bed?
Eulenspiegelei
To be so cold and yet not old
Oh what can ail the changeling child?
She has an eye that is too bold
Upon the night. She is beguiled.
The night is dark and the windowpane
Holds the rattle of the falling rain.
Oh look not forth but look within
Where the room lies safe from the stormwinds’ din.
The tears upon the infant eyes
Are held in icy thrall
And when she speaks contrariwise
The rivven echoes fall:
Oh mother come not near me now
Nor lay thy hand on my cold cold brow
Few years if any heap on my head
But I am old as the newly dead.
Now louder far than the stormwinds’ jar
And the voice of the mother and child
Is heard the scritch of the gravid bitch
That will be so wild.
Oh what can ail the gravid bitch
That howls upon the midnight stroke?
Dear mother dear I cannot say
Perhaps the devil gave her a poke.
The changeling child from her bed is gone
The mother weeps alone
And the stormwinds beat on the window pane
And mock the maternal moan.
Oh whither is fled thy changeling child
And by what witching craft?
It was the Eulenspiegel spake
And as he spake he laughed.
For well he knew that wrought it so,
The bitch and the changeling too
Are vanished away from the stormwinds’ play
And the stricken mother’s mew.
The Abominable Lake
Deep in the still mysterious waters of the lake a world lies drowned.
How sombre and sad the silent world in the womb of the lake,
Not the reflection of Tellus, not the arch of heaven
But an earth and a heaven beyond the dominion of Time,
Beyond the soft sensual touch of the seasonal flow
And the inviolable sequence of midnight and noon.
Poor world, my heart breaks for your sealed inarticulate woe,
And the tears that are frozen in yours melt to flood in my eyes,
Overflow and descend and impinge on the waters of the lake,
And shatter at once the form of the silent world.
But the teardrops mingle, the waters shudder and close,
And again and again the sad world is revealed to my sight.
Then I know, and the knowledge transfixes my sensitive heart,
Not my tears, nor my prayers, nor my gold shall encompass at last
A freedom unthought, manumission unhoped, undesired.
One of Many
You are only one of many
And of small account if any,
You think about yourself too much.
This touched the child with a quick touch
And worked his mind to such a pitch
He threw his fellows in a ditch.
This little child
That was so mild
Is grown too wild.
Murder in the first degree, cried Old Fury,
Recording the verdict of the jury.
Now they are come to the execution tree.
The gallows stand wide. Ah me, ah me.
Christ died for sinners, exclaimed the Prison Chaplain from his miscellany.
Weeping bitterly the little child cries: I die one of many.
Death’s Ostracism
He stood in dream upon the brim
Of a deep sea, his mirth too young for him,
For all the people that he smiled upon
Cry: Fool. And they are gone.
With what hostility
And pride
They saw and fled.
He sighed.
The sea ran heavy on a core
Of hidden deep disturbance, ah before
The dream came had an earthquake first
The seabed burst.
Now from the depths
He sees
The sullied water rise.
All is disease.
And the long reaching waves swing wide,
Sick with death’s taste upon the flooding tide,
And dead sea monsters with a deep appal
Of open wounds upon the water sprawl.
His foothold slips
The clay
Rank with long rains
Gives way.
But falling he will call the waves to friend,
Come cover over all and make an end.
No use, they will not do it, they swing aside.
Death’s ostracism in a dream he must abide.
The Boat
The boat that took my love away
He sent again to me
To tell me that he should not sleep
Alone beneath the sea.
The flower and fruit of love and mine
The ant, the fieldmouse and the mole,
But now a tiger prowls without
And claws upon my soul.
Love is not love that wounded bleeds
And bleeding sullies slow.
Come death within my hands and I
Unto my love will go.
Parrot
The old sick green parrot
High in a dingy cage
Sick with malevolent rage
Beadily glutted his furious eye
On the old dark
Chimneys of Noel Park
Far from his jungle green
Over the seas he came
To the yellow skies, to the dripping rain,
To the night of his despair.
And the pavements of his street
Are shining beneath the lamp
With a beauty that’s not for one
Born under a tropic sun.
/> He has croup. His feathered chest
Knows no minute of rest.
High on his perch he sits
And coughs and spits,
Waiting for death to come.
Pray heaven it won’t be long.
The Doctor
You are not looking at all well, my dear,
In fact you are looking most awfully queer.
Do you find that the pain is more than you can bear?
Yes, I find that it is more than I can bear, so give me some bromide
And then I will go away for a long time and hide
Somewhere on the seashore where the tide
Coming upon me when I am asleep shall cover
Me, go over entirely,
Carry beyond recovery.
I HATE THIS GIRL
I hate this girl.
She is so cold.
And yet her eyes say
She is not so good as gold.
I should like to kill her,
But what do I do?
Kiss her, kiss her,
And wish that she would kiss me too.
Infelice
Walking swiftly with the dreadful duchess,
He smiled too briefly, his face was as pale as sand,
He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming,
Leaving me alone with a private meaning,
He loves me so much, my heart is singing.
Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening
They said: Sir Rat is dining, is dining, is dining,
No Madam, he left no message, ah how his silence speaks,
He loves me too much for words, my heart is singing.
The Pullman seats are here, the tickets for Paris, I am waiting.
Presently the telephone rings, it is his valet speaking,
Sir Rat is called away, to Scotland, his constituents,
(Ah the dreadful duchess, but he loves me best)
Best pleasure to the last, my heart is singing.
One night he came, it was four in the morning,
Walking slowly upstairs, he stands beside my bed,
Dear darling, lie beside me, it is too cold to stand speaking,
He lies down beside me, his face is like the sand,
He is in a sleep of love, my heart is singing.
Sleeping softly softly, in the morning I must wake him,
And waking he murmurs, I only came to sleep.
The words are so sweetly cruel, how deeply he loves me,
I say them to myself alone, my heart is singing.
Now the sunshine strengthens, it is ten in the morning,
He is so timid in love, he only needs to know,
He is my little child, how can he come if I do not call him,
I will write and tell him everything, I take the pen and write:
I love you so much, my heart is singing.
Come, Death (I)
Why dost thou dally, Death, and tarry on the way?
When I have summoned thee with prayers and tears, why dost thou stay?
Come, Death, and carry now my soul away.
Wilt thou not come for calling, must I show
Force to constrain thy quick attention to my woe?
I have a hand upon thy Coat, and will
Not let thee go.
How foolish are the words of the old monks,
In Life remember Death.
Who would forget
Thou closer hangst on every finished breath?
How vain the work of Christianity
To teach humanity
Courage in its mortality.
Who would not rather die
And quiet lie
Beneath the sod
With or without a god?
Foolish illusion, what has Life to give?
Why should man more fear Death than fear to live?
The Cock and the Hen
The Cock of the North
Has forgotten his worth
And come down south
In a month of drouth,
Woe for the Cock of the North.
The Cock of the Fen
Has forgotten his Hen
Has flown from his pen
And passed out of his ken,
Woe for the Cock of the Fen.
The Cock of the North
And the Cock of the Fen
Are one and the same,
And one is the bane
Of the Hen
Of the Cock of the North and the Fen
Who sits in a pen
Of forgotten worth
In a Fen in the North,
Woe for them both.
Silence and Tears
A priestly garment, eminently suitable for conducting funeral services in inclement weather.
From a church outfitter’s catalogue
The tears of the widow of the military man
Fell down to the earth as the funeral sentence ran.
Dust to dust, Oh how frightful sighed the mourners as the rain began.
But the grave yawned wide and took the tears and the rain,
And the poor dead man was at last free from all his pain,
Pee-wee sang the little bird upon the tree again and again.
Is it not a solemn moment when the last word is said,
And wrapped in cloak of priestly custom we dispose our dead,
And the earth falls heavy, heavy, upon the expensive coffin lined with lead?
And may the coffin hold his bones in peace that lies below,
And may the widow woman’s tears make a good show,
And may the suitable priestly garment not let the breath of scandal through.
For the weather of their happening has been a little inclement,
And would people be so sympathetic if they knew how the story went?
Best not put it to the test. Silence and tears are convenient.
A Father for a Fool
to the tune ‘Boys and Girls Come out to Play’
Little Master Home-from-School,
This is the Parkland you must rule.
What does it feel like to have a father for a fool?
Your father mortgaged the estate,
Lost his money, blamed fate
And shot himself through the head too late.
There’s a father for a fool,
My little Master Home-from-School.
Why does Auntie wear such funny hats
And invert her sentences? Now that’s
Positive proof she must be bats.
Why has Parker got all the horses out for me?
Why doesn’t Ma meet the train as usually?
Here’s hoping they give us shrimps for tea.
Little Master Home-from-School,
Your Ma lies dead, she lies too cool,
She’s stone cold dead of a broken heart, the fool.
Jingle-jog the horses go,
And Parker’s thinking what I know:
Here comes Master Home-from-School
That had a father for a fool.
Siesta
She went to bed
To doze,
And rose
To find that she was dead
How, no one knows.
Brickenden, Hertfordshire
Sitting alone of a summer’s evening,
I thought
Of the tragedy of unwatered country.
O little village of Brickenden,
Where is thy stream,
Translucent drain of thy manorial sward?
Thy sward is green,
Its source of verdancy guessed but unseen.
Where is thy stream?
I have beat every bound of this wild wood.
I have trod down its spiteful and detaining undergrowth,
Seeking a broad stream and contented fish,
Seeking but finding not.
Now that the sun
Sou’westering in the sky
Tells me that evening is come,
I rest
>
Oppressed
By the wood’s profligate viridity,
By thy wood’s sap,
Child of a moisture that I cannot tap.
O woods of Brickenden, you have confounded me
By your appearance of humidity.
I see the pashy ground,
And round and round
My tired feet the rushes twine,
And frogs croak and the sweating slime
Is moved about by an ambiguous brood
Of low and legless life.
Hadst thou thy stream,
O wood of Brickenden,
This had been
Paradise.
But thy sap’s virtue comes from dank earth’s sweat,
And to be wet
Is not enough, O wood.
Hadst thou thy stream,
O little village of Brickenden,
Thy stream
Had salined thee
By virtue of destinatory sea,
And thou hadst been
A Paradise.
But lacking stream
Art but a suppuration of earth’s humours.
Sitting alone on a summer’s evening,
I wept
For the tragedy of unwatered country.
Take thou my tears, O Brickenden,
They are thy rank sweat’s sea.
The Cousin
Standing alone on a fence in a spasm,
I behold all life in a microcosm.
Behind me unknown with a beckoning finger
Is the house and well timbered park. I linger
Uncertain yet whether I should enter, take possession, still the nuisance
Of a huge ambition; and below me is the protesting face of my cousin.
The Murderer
My true love breathed her latest breath
And I have closed her eyes in death.
It was a cold and windy day
In March, when my love went away.
She was not like other girls – rather diffident,
And that is how we had an accident.
Mother, among the Dustbins
Mother, among the dustbins and the manure
I feel the measure of my humanity, an allure
As of the presence of God. I am sure
In the dustbins, in the manure, in the cat at play
Is the presence of God, in a sure way
He moves there. Mother, what do you say?
I too have felt the presence of God in the broom
I hold, in the cobwebs in the room,
But most of all in the silence of the tomb.
Ah! but that thought that informs the hope of our kind
Is but an empty thing, what lies behind? —
Naught but the vanity of a protesting mind
That would not die. This is the thought that bounces
Within a conceited head and trounces
Inquiry. Man is most frivolous when he pronounces.
Well Mother, I shall continue to feel as I do,
And I think you would be wise to do so too,
Can you question the folly of man in the creation of God? Who are you?
Le Désert de l’Amour