All the Poems

by Stevie Smith

  I stood knee-deep in the sea

  I saw gods coming towards me

  All came and kissed, all kissed

  It was for friendship.

  It was a hot day

  The sea

  Lapped to my knees

  And kissed me.

  All the gods were old friends

  I knew them from long ago

  They kissed me each after each and went

  In friendship.

  Kissed me on the lips

  Held me to them

  Set me again in the knee-deep sea

  And went, in friendship.

  Then came out drawing a boat after him

  He set me in the boat

  He set me on his knees in the boat, kissing me.

  It was not for friendship.

  Oh how happy this day was

  All day in his arms I was,

  But not for friendship.

  A little breeze drew now from the land

  Bringing a smell of poppies

  And on his head, was poppies

  And in his hand, poppies

  And on his lips when he kissed me

  A taste of poppies.

  Sleep or Death, Sleep or Death kissed me,

  Not for friendship.

  You do not kiss one for friendship?

  No, for welcome,

  To welcome one home.

  Lord Say-and-Seal

  Lord Say-and-Seal, Lord Say-and-Seal

  Why not for once say and reveal

  All the dark thoughts your words go over

  To make a pretty bog-hole cover.

  The Days of Yore

  What pleased him more

  Than anything else

  Was the resemblance he bore

  To the Prince of Wales,

  To the Prince of Wales

  And more and more

  As the Prince of Wales was

  In the days of yore.

  Pearl

  to an American lady poet committing suicide because of not being appreciated enough

  Then cried the American poet where she lay supine:

  ‘My name is Purrel; I was caast before swine.’

  Yes, I know

  The pale face stretches across the centuries

  It is so subtle and yielding; yet innocent,

  Her name is Lucretia Borgia.

  Yes, I know. I knew her brother Cesare

  Once. But only for a short time.

  Widowhood

  or

  The Home-Coming of Lady Ross

  her husband, the Lord of the Isles, is dead, and she lives alone by the sea

  Nobody hears me, nobody sees me,

  My father, the General, used to say

  He had only to come into a room

  For everybody else to go out for it.

  (‘Ach, wie schrecklich, so alt zu sein,

  Und diese schrecklichen Tränensäcke,

  Als wenn sie viel geweint hätte!’

  Said the young girl to her friend,

  In her hotel at Baden.)

  My heart is a frozen lump,

  I look forward to nothing but Death,

  I am glad Harold is not here

  To see me now.

  (‘Oh how awful, to be so old,

  And those awful tear-tracks on her cheeks,

  As if she had cried a lot!’

  Said the young girl to her friend

  In the hotel at Cheltenham.)

  Harold loved the hotel at Baden and the hotel at Cheltenham

  He loved staying in hotels, he loved staying in ’em.

  Now I live alone by the sea

  And I am happy as never I used to be,

  Harold, can you forgive me?

  My family were never much good in company.

  That’s what you used to say, dear, do you remember, when I stayed in my room

  In the hotel at Baden, or wherever it might be, Up you would come

  Rushing, and kiss me and cry: Rhoda, your family,

  I must say, are not much good in company.

  Oh Harold, our house looks so beautiful today,

  Why did you always want to go away?

  Voice from the Tomb (1)

  nightmare, after reading the Parable of the Talents

  Here lies a poet who would not write

  His soul runs screaming through the night

  Oh give me paper, give me pen,

  And I will very soon begin.

  Poor Soul, keep silent; in Death’s clime

  There’s no pen, paper, notion,

  And no Time.

  Voice from the Tomb (2)

  to the tune ‘From Greenland’s icy mountains’

  (Hymns Ancient and Modern)

  I trod a foreign path, dears,

  The silence was extreme

  And so it came about, dears,

  That I fell into dream,

  That I feel into my dream, my dear,

  And feelings beyond cause,

  And tears without a reason

  And so was lost.

  Voice from the Tomb (3)

  Such evidence I have of indifference

  Were surely enough to break the coldest heart,

  But this heart is not cold, it never has been cold,

  It never, never, never has been cold.

  Voice from the Tomb (4)

  I died for lack of company

  Did my dear friends not know?

  Oh why would they not speak to me

  Yet said they loved me so?

  Voice from the Tomb (5)

  a Soul earthbound by the grievance of never having been important

  You never heard of me, I dare

  Say. Well, I’m here.

  The Dedicated Dancing Bull and the Water Maid

  Beethoven’s Sonata in F, Op. 17, for Horn and Piano, played by Dennis Brain and Denis Matthews

  Hop hop, thump thump,

  Oh I am holy, oh I am plump,

  A young bull dancing on the baked grass glade,

  And beside me dances the Water Maid.

  She says I must dance with her,

  Why should I? I loathe her,

  She has such a stupid way of singing

  It does not amount to anything,

  But she thinks it does, oh yes

  She does not suppose she is spurious.

  I wish I could be rid of the Water Maid

  Or hid from her. Does she think she can make me afraid?

  Ho ho, thump thump,

  Oh I am elegant, oh I am plump,

  As I wave my head my feet go thud

  On the baked grass. Oh I am good.

  Now night comes and I go into the wood shades

  And the moon comes up and lights them as the day fades.

  Hop hop, faster faster,

  Thump thump, but the Maid comes after,

  She is teasing me by singing with a stupid sound

  That does not go at all well with my bound,

  Oh how I should like to tread her in the ground.

  But I must think only about my feet

  And remember to bring them down on the beat.

  Hoo hoo, now I sing through my nose,

  Hoo hoo, and off the Maid goes

  A little way in an affected flutter

  Pretending to be startled by the hoo of my deep mutter.

  Hoo, then, hoo, with a hop and a jump

  Who is this beautiful young animal who is so plump?

  Why is it our famous dedicated dancing bull,

  Did you notice how delicately he goes?

  Was that a hoof somewhere in those silver toes?

  With nonsense

  The Water Maid makes off into the distance.

  The night is mine now and I come to the forest pool

  And drink and do not think I am a fool.

  Night Thoughts

  There were thoughts that came to Phil

  And Oh they made him feel quite ill,

  They were so envious and b
itter,

  He wished he could have something sweeter,

  But still he felt it was all right

  As long as they only came by night.

  He thought about his job … so dull

  And poorly paid; all that was awful,

  And then his girl, he loved her very much,

  Only she did not seem to love him quite so much.

  As for friends – Phil groaned aloud,

  His thoughts drove in like a night-cloud,

  But still it was night, and so he felt

  It was just something that could not be helped.

  The thoughts however by now were single-minded,

  They did not fuss or beat around it,

  They simply tried to find a way

  To make it seem they came by day.

  When at last they succeeded in doing this

  Poor Phil adopted a most peculiar neurosis,

  He summoned up a picture of shallow sea-water

  And in it he paddled, he was a sea-walker.

  On an empty beach, in full sun,

  He paddled for miles and did not see anyone,

  And as he walked, the salty smell and the air

  Of the beautiful place, worked; he did not remember.

  That beach, as a matter of fact, shelves to deep water,

  He must be careful to remain always a coastal-walker.

  Happy Phil in his solitude. I am glad

  He has this retreat. But it is not good.

  Piggy to Joey

  Piggy to Joey,

  Piggy to Joe,

  Yes, that’s what I was –

  Piggy to Joe.

  Will he come back again?

  Oh no, no, no.

  Oh how I wish I hadn’t been

  Piggy to Joe.

  Pretty

  Why is the word pretty so underrated?

  In November the leaf is pretty when it falls

  The stream grows deep in the woods after rain

  And in the pretty pool the pike stalks

  He stalks his prey, and this is pretty too,

  The prey escapes with an underwater flash

  But not for long, the great fish has him now

  The pike is a fish who always has his prey

  And this is pretty. The water rat is pretty

  His paws are not webbed, he cannot shut his nostrils

  As the otter can and the beaver, he is torn between

  The land and water. Not ‘torn’, he does not mind.

  The owl hunts in the evening and it is pretty

  The lake water below him rustles with ice

  There is frost coming from the ground, in the air mist

  All this is pretty, it could not be prettier.

  Yes, it could always be prettier, the eye abashes

  It is becoming an eye that cannot see enough,

  Out of the wood the eye climbs. This is prettier

  A field in the evening, tilting up.

  The field tilts to the sky. Though it is late

  The sky is lighter than the hill field

  All this looks easy but really it is extraordinary

  Well, it is extraordinary to be so pretty.

  And it is careless, and that is always pretty

  This field, this owl, this pike, this pool are careless,

  As Nature is always careless and indifferent

  Who sees, who steps, means nothing, and this is pretty.

  So a person can come along like a thief – pretty! –

  Stealing a look, pinching the sound and feel,

  Lick the icicle broken from the bank

  And still say nothing at all, only cry pretty.

  Cry pretty, pretty, pretty and you’ll be able

  Very soon not even to cry pretty

  And so be delivered entirely from humanity

  This is prettiest of all, it is very pretty.

  The Small Lady

  In front of the mighty washing machine

  The small lady stood in a beautiful dream,

  ‘That these clothes so clean (oh what a relief)

  Must still be ironed, is my only grief.’

  But then came a great witch passing on the air

  Who said, ‘What is it you still wish for, my pretty dear?

  Would you like to be a duck on a northern lake,

  A milky white duck with a yellow beak?’

  ‘Aroint thee, false witch!’ cried the lady with a brave face,

  ‘Human inventions help properly, magic is a disgrace.’

  The witch flew off cackling for the harm was done,

  ‘I smell water,’ cried the lady and followed her into the setting sun.

  And now in a false shape, on the wind-driven black pelt

  Of that far northern lake, she is without help:

  Crying, Away, away,

  Come, ray of the setting sun,

  Over the lake

  Spread thy red streak,

  Light my kingdom.

  Heart of my heart, it is a mournful song,

  Never will this poor lady come home.

  Animula, vagula, blandula

  the Emperor Hadrian to his soul

  Little soul so sleek and smiling

  Flesh’s friend and guest also

  Where departing will you wander

  Growing paler now and languid

  And not joking as you used to?

  Friends of the River Trent

  (at their Annual Dinner)

  A dwindling body of ageing fish

  Is all we can present

  Because of water pollution

  In the River Trent

  Because of water pollution, my boys,

  And a lack of concerted action,

  These fish of what they used to be

  Is only a measly fraction

  A-swimming about most roomily

  Where they shoved each other before,

  Yet not beefing about being solitary

  Or the sparseness of the fare.

  Then three cheers for the ageing fish, my boys,

  Content in polluted depths

  To grub up enough food, my boys,

  To carry ’em to a natural death,

  And may we do the same, my boys,

  And carry us to a natural death.

  Is it Happy?

  Is it happy for me, is it happy

  That my father, Lord Beale, was so famous

  And I am a ne’er-do-weel? Is it happy?

  And what of my mother – ‘the lady’

  We called her, because she was so high-minded, born Plaidy –

  Was it happy for her

  That Father was never there?

  Was it happy?

  And Rory, Rory my brother

  Who knew neither father nor brother

  Being adopted in infancy by Uncle Pym

  Whose name he took, was it happy for him?

  Thorwald, our spaniel, gun-trained,

  Died of a fatty heart;

  Well, Father was never at home,

  And I didn’t shoot.

  Was it happy for Thorwald?

  … all that money paid for a worthless scrip

  That might have been mine today

  If Papa had stuck to Gilt Edged or Blue Chip.

  Is that happy?

  My father died in his fame

  Saving his country and me

  From the people over the sea.

  How does it feel being Beale,

  Lord Beale and a ne’er-do-weel?

  I’ve brought Mother home to the little house,

  Having let the grand one for a commando course,

  Telling ’em to look out for the pictures, of course.

  All my life I have tried not to be envious

  Of Father, or take it out by being nefarious,

  Truly I loved him, revere

  The memory of this great soldier,

  Field Marshall Lord B. he was when he died,

  (Happy, for me?)

  Mother say
s I should bring home a bride,

  Greatness skips a generation, she says, and he,

  My son, need not be a nonentity.

  I’ll do it, why not?

  Play the part out,

  Find a sort of happiness in it too I dare say, slyly

  Being as it were all this quite so entirely,

  Blithely calling the saviour of my country, Father,

  (Happy for me)

  Blithely begetting sons to carry it farther,

  (Will that be?)

  I’ll ask Cynthia tonight, she’ll say yes,

  When I’ve got the Commandos out she’ll love the place.

  It’s occurred to me also once or twice of late

  To join the True Church, something Father would hate,

  Not the Anglicans of course, they’re too humdrum,

  It would have to be the Roman Communion.

  Well, I’ve read Father Gerard and about the recusants quite a lot

  And can prove: As they suffered, there cannot have been a Catholic Plot.

  Is it happy for me, driving Mother mad?

  Does she wish I was bad?

  Think Rory might have been better than me?

  Well, if she does, she don’t let me see.

  Happy, is it happy?

  Watchful

  a Tale of Psyche

  When Watchful came to me he said

  As he never said before,

  Wait, wait, I will see you

  On Northumberland Moor.

  I played with my brothers

  In Northumberland House

  And we laughed as we skipped and ran

  And made a great noise,

  And I looked through the window

  And saw the sea run white

  Against Northumberland,

  Country of my delight.

  When Watchful spoke,

  As he never used to speak,

  I drew apart from my brothers,

  I scowled to hear Watchful speak,

  Come to me, come to me,

  Upon Northumberland Moor, hurry!

  I will not come yet

  But I will come some day.

  First I must play with my brothers

  And make some money

  On the Stock Exchange. It was funny

  How we made so much money

  Because we did not want it in the old

  Tall house in Northumberland,

  In fact we did not want it much at all.

  Often we gave parties

  In London

  For Senior Civil Servants

  And barristers

  And Junior Members

  Of the Government.

  I said to my brother Tommy,

  It is funny

  How they come

  When we do not want them very much.

  Tommy said, It is funny

  Like the money,

  We do not want

  It or them very much,

  Yet they come.

  It is funny, Tommy, too, I said,

  How the warmth of the parties

  Fascinates me, and the wild laughing eyes

  Of the people hold me.

  You would not have thought