by Stevie Smith
He lifteth up, he singeth
And all the people arm themselves
In the love his beauty bringeth.
Longing for Death because of Feebleness
Oh would that I were a reliable spirit careering around
Congenially employed and no longer by feebleness bound
Oh who would not leave the flesh to become a reliable spirit
Possibly travelling far and acquiring merit.
My Heart Goes Out
My heart goes out to my Creator in love
Who gave me Death as end and remedy.
All living creatures come to quiet Death
For him to eat up their activity
And give them nothing. Which is what they want, although
When they are living they do not think so.
Look!
I am becalmed in a deep sea
And give signals, but they are not answered
And yet I see ships in the distance
And give signals, but they do not answer.
Am I a pariah ship, or a leper
To be shunned reasonably?
Or did I commit a crime long ago
And have forgotten, but they remember?
Into the dark night to darker I move
And the lights of the ships are not seen now
But instead there is a phosphorescence from the water.
That light shines, and now I see
Low down, as I bend my hand in the water
A fish so transparent in his inner organs
That I know he comes from the earthquake bed
Five miles below where I sail, I sail.
All his viscera are transparent, his eyes globule on stalks,
Is he dead? Or alive and only languid? Now
Into my hand he comes, the travelling creature,
Not from the sea-bed only but from the generations,
Faint because of the lighter pressure,
Fainting, a long fish, stretched out.
So we meet, and for a moment
I forget my solitariness
But then I should like to show him,
And who shall I show him to?
Who is this Who Howls and Mutters?
Who is this that howls and mutters?
It is the Muse, each word she utters
Is thrown against a shuttered door
And very soon she’ll speak no more.
Cry louder, Muse, make much more noise
The world is full of rattling toys
I thought she’d say, Why should I then?
I have spoke low to better men
But oh she did not speak at all but went away
And now I search for her by night and day.
Night and day I seek my Muse
Seek the one I did abuse
She had so sweet a face, so sweet a voice
But oh she did not make sufficient noise.
False plea. I did not listen then
That listen now and listen now in vain.
And still the tale of talent murdered
Untimely and untimely buried
Works in my soul. Forgive me, Lord, I cry
Who only makest Muses howl and sigh
Thou, Lord, repent and give her back to me
Weeping uncomforted, Lord have pity.
He did repent. I have her now again
Howling much worse, and oh the door is open.
Oh What is the Thing He Done?
Oh what is the terrible thing he has done
You are always going on about
My pitiful cousin, my darling one,
That will shut him out from the grace of the sun
Oh what is the thing he done?
Oh is it such a thing as the crocodile
Would shake in each sensitive coil
Oh is it such as thing as would make the blood
Of an adder and his young ones boil
Oh it is a thing as the Prince of Hell
Would plainly declare it was not well.
But what is the thing, oh what is it, pray?
My lips shall never be sullied to say,
Go forth with your cousin, you wretched woman,
And dwell with him in the dark of the sun.
Magna est Veritas
With my looks I am bound to look simple or fast I would rather look simple
So I wear a tall hat on the back of my head that is rather a temple
And I walk rather queerly and comb my long hair
And people say, Don’t bother about her.
So in my time I have picked up a good many facts,
Rather more than the people do who wear smart hats
And I do not deceive because I am rather simple too
And although I collect facts I do not always know what they amount to.
I regard them as a contribution to almighty Truth, magna est veritas et praevalebit,
Agreeing with that Latin writer, Great is Truth and will prevail in a bit.
The Light of Life
Put out that Light,
Put out that bright Light,
Let darkness fall.
Put out that Day,
It is the time for nightfall.
In the Park
Walking one day in the park in winter
I heard two silvered gentlemen talking,
Two old friends, elderly, walking, talking
There by the silver lake mid-pooled black in winter.
‘Pray for the Mute who have no word to say,’
Cried the one old gentleman, ‘Not because they are dumb,
But they are weak. And the weak thoughts beating in the brain
Generate a sort of heat, yet cannot speak.
Thoughts that are bound without sound
In the tomb of the brain’s room, wound. Pray for the Mute.’
‘But’ (said his friend), ‘see how they swim
Free in the element best loved, so wet; yet breathe
As a visitor to the air come; plunge then, rejoicing more,
Having left it briefly for the visited shore, to come
Home to the wet
Windings that are yet
Best loved though familiar; and oh so right the wet
Stream and the wave; he is their pet.’
Finished, the mild friend
Smiled, put aside his well-tuned hearing instrument
And it seemed
The happiness he spoke of
Irradiated all his members, and his heart
Barked with delight to stress
So much another’s happiness.
But which other’s? The sombre first
Speaker reversed
The happy moment; cried again
(Mousing for pain) ‘Pray for the Mute’ (a tear drops)
‘They are like the brute.’
Struck by the shout
That he may not know what it’s about
The deaf friend again
Up-ends his hearing instrument to relieve the strain.
What? Oh shock, ‘“Pray for the Mute”?
I thought you said the newt.’
Now which is Christianer pray, of these old friends, the one who will say
For pain’s sake pray, pray; or the deaf other that rejoices
So much that the cool amphibian
Shall have his happiness, all things rejoicing with him?
But wait: the first speaker now, the old sombre one,
Is penetrated quite by his friend’s sun
And, ‘Oh blessed you,’ he cries, ‘to show
So in simplicity what is true.’
All his face is suffused with happy tears and as he weeps he sings a happy song,
Happier even than his friend’s song was, righting the wrong.
So two, better than one, finally strike truth in his happy song:
‘Praise,’ cries the weeping softened one,
‘Not pray, praise, all men,
Praise is the best prayer, the least
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br /> self’s there, that least’s release.’
Evangelie
or
The Figure of Literary Corruption, seeking Glory not Truth
Wicked and corrupt
Was Evangelie
And the corruption came out of her
On to me.
Corruptest and most wicked
Of creatures,
Can I forget a word she said
Or her features?
Lord, cleanse me of the corruption
Of Evangelie,
And of my feelings for her,
That I may wear again the garment of whiteness,
And the fair crown in my hair.
Jumbo
Jumbo, Jumbo, Jumbo darling, Jumbo come to Mother.
But Jumbo wouldn’t, he was a dog who simply wouldn’t bother
An ugly beast he was with drooping guts and filthy skin,
It was quite wonderful how ‘mother’ loved the ugly thing.
The Choosers
Who shall we send to fetch him away
This young-man Author of the Month of May?
We will send Mr Puff to fetch him away,
We are the Choosers and stand in the way.
Oh we are the Choosers, what we say goes.
Does Puff know this? Yes, Puff knows.
Hey ho what a merry game,
It is as if we were still in Pop, it is the same.
With a hey-ho and a yah
No, we will not have So-and-So
Because we do not like his hat or his Ma.
Outside of this eclectic and up-to-date circle
Slink the sleek Great Ones, and you know
They may go and not care a particle
Because the Angel of Posterity has chosen them
And the Choosers will not be known then,
All the same it a shame to treat them so.
Let Posterity-Time come
Quick and Choosers be dumb.
Oh why does England cherish her arts in this wise,
Picking inferiorly with grafted eyes?
It is because it is like the school they never forget,
So-and-so must be the driven out one, this the pet.
The Occasional Yarrow
It was a mile of greenest grass
Whereon a little stream did pass,
The Occasional Yarrow
Only in every seventh year
Did this pretty stream appear,
The Occasional Yarrow
Wading and warbling in its beds
Of grass decked out with daisy heads,
The Occasional Yarrow
There in my seventh year, and this sweet stream’s,
I wandered happily (as happy gleams
The Occasional Yarrow).
Though now to memory alone
I can call up thy lovely form,
Occasional Yarrow.
I still do bless thy Seventh days
Bless thy sweet name and all who praise
The Occasional Yarrow.
The Sorrowful Girl
Muriel, Muriel, marry me Muriel,
And I will comfort you as well
And bring life to your pale hair
And your languid air.
Ah then I shall not be I, for I am here
With my languid air and lifeless hair
And I do not feel cold or heat
I am imprisoned and do not need to be freed
My prison is my sorrowful mind
And I do not wish to leave it behind
Wake me not, leave me here, leave me alone
I am as God made me, a sorrowful one.
And singing she sang, I am sorrowful, sorrowful
And because I am sorrowful I am beautiful.
Her lover has left her and gone angrily off
He speaks of her only to laugh and to scoff
Pretending he only wanted to marry her for her money
Intending to prove his thoughts were not moony
With love, or any such stuff,
That he is not such a fool as to have had a rebuff.
A pale light-moon-white lily romantic girl-of-a-lover
With nothing to her name but two thousand pounds in Old Consols, who will have her?
Is the burden of the anger of this churl and of his troubles.
But ever here came from far away
Growing fainter with the passing day
The sorrowful song on the sorrowful air
Of the languid girl with the lifeless hair
Singing: Oh I am sorrowful, sorrowful, sorrowful
And because I am sorrowful I am beautiful.
The Starling
I will never leave you darling
To be eaten by the starling
For I love you more than ever
In the wet and stormy weather.
Thus to the husband sang the wife
That loved him more than his own life
Oh at these words the husband felt
Each hair rise separate upon his icy pelt.
He let himself down from out his room
He went upon the ancient mountain
And there he quite forgot his gloom
As he trod the torrent’s icy fountain.
Cold, cold, icy cold,
Cold, cold, cold I am,
Cold has no place in my wife’s warm thought
There she will have me cradled and wraught.
Oh nothing, nothing, nothing I
He cried, that in her thinking does not lie.
Then he doffed his clothes and quickly froze
In the ice of the ancient mountainside
And there in an icy happy doze
He doth for evermore abide.
Down in the valley waits the wife
That loved him more than his own life
And still she sings, in hope to lure
Him to her side again, Be very sure
I will never leave you darling
To be eaten by the starling
For I love you more than ever
In the wet and stormy weather.
Die Lorelei
An antique story comes to me
And fills me with anxiety,
I wonder why I fear so much
What surely has no modern touch?
It is of Germany it speaks,
One evening time; the mountain peaks
Are in the sun, but the old Rhine
Flows secretly and does not shine.
There, on a rock majestical,
A girl with smile equivocal,
Painted, young and damned and fair,
Sits and combs her yellow hair.
With a yellow comb she combs it,
Sings a song, and sometimes moans it,
That has a most peculiar turn,
It makes the heart and belly burn.
The sailor sailing, hearing it
Falls at once into a fit,
He does not see the rocky race,
His eyes are looking for a face.
The boat strikes hard, as she must do,
And down she goes, and he goes too.
This story brings me so much grief
I know not how to find relief.
Lurks there some meaning underneath?
Farewell
Farewell dear friends
I loved you so much
But now I must leave you
And spread over me the dust
Fare life fare well
Fare never ill
Far I go now
And say, Farewell.
Farewell dear world
With the waters around you curled
And the grass on your breast
I loved you best.
Farewell fish and insect
Bird, animal, swift mover
Grim reptile as well
I was your approver.
Wide sky, farewell,
Sun, moon, stars in places
Farewell all fair universes
In far places.
Ding dong, ding dong
As a bell is rung,
Sing ding dong farewell
As a sweet bell.
SELECTED POEMS (1962)
Thoughts about the Person from Porlock
Coleridge received the Person from Porlock
And ever after called him a curse
Then why did he hurry to let him in? –
He could have hid in the house.
It was not right of Coleridge in fact it was wrong
(But often we all do wrong)
As the truth is I think he was already stuck
With Kubla Khan.
He was weeping and wailing, I am finished, finished,
I shall never write another word of it
When along comes the Person from Porlock
And takes the blame for it.
It was not right, it was wrong,
But often we all do wrong.
*
May we enquire the name of the Person from Porlock?
Why, Porson, didn’t you know?
He lived at the bottom of Porlock Hill
So had a long way to go
He wasn’t much in the social sense
Though his grandmother was a Warlock,
One of the Rutlandshire ones I fancy
And nothing to do with Porlock
And he lived at the bottom of the hill as I said
And had a cat named Flo,
And had a cat named Flo.
Thoughts about the Person from Porlock (cont.)
I long for the Person from Porlock
To bring my thoughts to an end,
I am becoming impatient to see him
I think of him as a friend
Often I look out of the window
Often I run to the gate
I think, He will come tomorrow
I think it is rather late.
I am hungry to be interrupted
For ever and ever amen
Oh Person from Porlock come quickly
And bring my thoughts to an end.
*
I felicitate the people who have a Person from Porlock
To break up everything and throw it away
Because then there will be nothing to keep them
And they need not stay.
*
Why do they grumble so much?
He comes like a benison
They should be glad he has not forgotten them
They might have had to go on.
*
These thoughts are depressing I know. They are depressing,
I wish I was more cheerful, it is more pleasant,
Also it is a duty, we should smile as well as submitting
To the purpose of One Above who is experimenting
With various mixtures of human character which goes best.
All is interesting for him it is exciting, but not for us.
There I go again. Smile, smile and get some work to do
Then you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go.
Thoughts about the Christian Doctrine of Eternal Hell