by Stevie Smith
And idiots who think like this are always generous
When it comes to paying the price for money. Only
The wise look twice at that price and are parsimonious. Only
The clergyman in this radio programme seemed not stupid, not half an idiot.
Pretty Baby
Sweet baby, pretty baby, I bless thee,
Thou liest so snug and lookst so prettily,
And yet I think you also look imperially.
Why shouldst thou not? If it is Deity
Couches in mother’s lap, prettily, prettily,
Then thou art God and canst not sin or feel guilty,
And we can do, for we have our sins innerly,
Sweet baby. Now I think there is a fee
That you must pay for looking happily.
And that is: not to know what being free
From sins means, being sinless. Only we
Can bless and measure that felicity.
But let the angels sing a song for thy birth sweetly,
And we will try to sing songs too, but differently,
For we are earth-born and the song is heavenly.
Our Doggy
First he sat, and then he lay,
And then he said: I’ve come to stay.
And that is how we acquired our doggy Pontz.
He is all right as dogs go, but not quite what one wants.
Because he talks. He talks like you and me.
And he is not you and me, he is made differently.
You think it is nice to have a talking animal?
It is not nice. It is unnatural.
My Tortoise
I had a sweet tortoise called Pye
Wabbit.
He ate dandelions, it was
His habit.
Pye Wabbit, Pye Wy-et,
It was more than a habit, it was
His diet.
All the hot summer days, Pye
Wy-et, Pye Wiked-it,
Ate dandelions. I lay on the grass flat to see
How much he liked it.
In the autumn when it got cold, Pye Wiked-it, Pye
Wy-bernator
Went to sleep till next spring. He was
A hibernator.
First he made a secret bed for the winter,
To lie there.
We loved him far too much ever
To spy where.
Why does his second name change every time?
Why, to make the rhyme.
Pye our dear tortoise
Is dead and gone.
He lies in the tomb we built for him, called
‘Pye’s Home’.
Pye, our dear tortoise,
We loved him so much.
Is he as dear to you now
As he was to us?
Have Done, Gudrun
Sir, –
Have done, Gudrun,
Self-appointed scourge
Of our kingdom,
No truth lies
In your foolish words, but
As much vanity
As there is in Germany,
Yours faithfully,
Stevie Smith
William the Dog
William the Dog
When he comes to tea
Always asks to sit next to me.
William the Dog
Behaves very well
He sits up straight
And wags his tail.
When tea is over
He sings a song
And then he says
‘I must be gone’.
Yes, he must be gone
For he lives on the moon,
‘Goodbye, William,
Come back soon.’
‘Goodbye, goodbye,’
‘Goodbye, goodbye,’
William the Dog
Runs up to the sky.
He runs up the sky
Till he gets to the moon,
‘Goodbye, goodbye,
I will come back soon.’
Sapphic
(in mixed speech)
The mune ha gien her loicht an’ gan
The stardies eek are flee
Upon ma bett in durchet nich’
Ah lane ah lee.
The Hound Puss
I have a cat: I call him Pumpkin,
A great fat furry purry lumpkin.
Hi-dee-diddle hi-diddle dumpkin.
He sleeps within my bed at night,
His eyes are Mephistopheles-bright:
I dare not look upon their blight.
He stalks me like my angry God,
His gaze is like a fiery rod:
He dines exclusively on cod.
Avaunt, you creeping saviour-devil,
Away with thy angelical evil!
APPENDIX II – UNPUBLISHED POEMS
Northumberland Park
Northumberland Park Northumberland Park
In the month of November is very dark
The children run happily in the streets
And the old parrot croaks behind a curtain of beads
The leaves have fallen from the trees in the park
And if it does not rain will make a fine spark
Always in November in the dark there is this idea
That very soon a great fire will start
The smell of this place is of soot and sulphur
And in the darkness lights flare
It may be the naptha
Flares on the street stall
Or the scarlet light runs on the cinema walls
And there are the orange and yellow lights
Of shops and houses and the pale green light
Fussy
Is Fussy coming?
Will Fussy be there?
Oh I do hope Fussy’s coming
Fussy is my ideal
Who is Fussy? Fussy Mapham
Fussy is the prettiest girl in Upper Clapham.
Goodnight
Miriam and Horlick spend a great deal of time putting off going to bed.
This is the thought that came to me in my bedroom where they both were, and she said:
Horlick, look at Tuggers, he is getting quite excited in his head.
Tuggers was the dog. And he was getting excited. So.
Miriam had taken her stockings off and you know
Tuggers was getting excited licking her legs, slow, slow.
It’s funny Tuggers should be so enthusiastic, said Horlick nastily,
It must be nice to be able to get so excited about nothing really,
Try a little higher up old chap, you’re acting puppily.
I yawned. Miriam and Horlick said Goodnight
And went. It was 2 o’clock and Miriam was quite white
With sorrow. Very well then, Goodnight.
Porgy Georgie
Porgy Georgie
only 4 years old
You eat too much my lad
You are too bold.
Give over overeating
Put off that childish grin
I really think for one so young
You are too old to sin.
Father Damien Doshing
Father Damien Doshing
Used to take in washing
To supplement his stipend which was really rather skinny
This conduct in a man of God
His flock thought very very odd
And to his priestly honour detrimental
They told the Bishop who though transcendental
In his views was seriously shocked
And had poor Fr. Damien unfrocked
So now he edits Pliny
And turns an honest farthing with his pen
As well as laundering his fellow men.
Bed
This is my bed
Hereon I slept
And wept
and slept and wept
and wept and slept and woke to weep again
for the remembered pain
of a fled dream
and just as kee
n
and secondly remembered pain
of waking life
This is my bed
Hereon I quaffed
the cup of dreamless sleep
Hereon I quaffed
And laughed
and quaffed and laughed
and laughed and quaffed and woke to laugh again
for the forgotten pain
of a fled dream
and just as keen
and secondly forgotten pain
of waking life
This is my bed
When I was wed
Hereon I plied for yokèd sleep
Hereon I Plied
and cried
and plied and cried
and cried and plied and woke to cry again
for the remembered pain
of a yoked dream
and just as keen
and secondly remembered pain
of a yoked life
I slept I laughed I plied
I wept I quaffed I cried
And when the dum-dum years
Had made an end of laughter cries and tears
Hereon I died.
Gainsay me not with braggart boast, Mortality,
Bed is Reality.
My Earliest Love
This is my earliest love, sweet Death,
That was my love from my first breath.
The Ballet of the Twelve Dancing Princesses
Hayes Court, June 1939
The schoolgirls dance on the cold grass
The ballet of the twelve dancing princesses
And the shadows pass
Over their cold feet
Above in the cold summer sky the clouds mass
The icy wind blows across the laurel bushes
The sky is hard blue and gray where a cloud rushes
The sky is icy blue it is like the night blue where a star pushes.
But it is not night
It is daytime on an English lawn.
The scholars dance. The weather is as fresh as dawn.
Dawn and night are the webs of this summer’s day
Dawn and night the tempo of the children’s play.
Who taught the scholars? Who informed the dance?
Who taught them so innocent to advance
So far in a peculiar study? They seem to be in a trance.
It is a trance in which the cold innocent feet pass
To and fro in a hinted meaning over the grass
The meaning is not more ominous and frivolous than the clouds that mass.
There is nothing to my thought more beautiful at this moment
Than a vision of innocence that is bound to do something equivocal
I sense something equivocal beneath the veneer of an innocent spent
Tale and in the trumpet sound of the icy storm overhead there is evocable
The advance of innocence against a mutation that is irrevocable
Only in the imagination of that issue joined for a split second is the idea beautiful.
Song in Time of War
God bless the lion, the British animal
His nature to his foes is horrible
He swims the air like a high admiral
And in the fifth year of the war he is entirely hostile.
With steel his claw is armed, his glance is wary
Of bite and slap and pounce he is not chary
God bless the creature, woken from his reverie,
And in the sixth year of the war give him the victory.
In peace, dear animal, thou was too much inclined
To rest thy body and neglect thy mind
Careless of aught save sand and rolling sea
And lay thy head upon a falling tree.
Oh if in peace thou turnst again to sleep
Thine is the world’s loss, and our grave deep.
Mrs Midnight
Mrs Midnight
Was rather tight
So she left for home
She thought she would roam
She went into a field where the moon fell
And sat down by a disused well.
Since when
She has not been seen
As a matter of fact
She was not seen then
But her spirit, earthbound by the accident,
Has told everybody how it happened.
They Killed
They killed a poet by neglect
And treating him worse than an insect
They said what he wrote was feeble
And should never be read by serious people
Serious people, serious people,
I should think it was serious to be such people.
Professor Snooks Does His Worst with a Grecian Fragment
‘Cassandra’
CHORUS: Oh I am certain he will come again
And lighten our remorse with a religious strain
Or else he’ll say
That never never will he go away.
CASS.: Apollo lord of all the lordliest singers
Behold thy mighty priestess where she lingers
Oh pour on her the laurels and the bay
And never never never go away.
CHORUS: Never never never go away.
CASS.: The voices fade I only hear my own
I go towards the House that is my tomb
Where Clytemnestra waits her lover also
I should not now have known that this was so
If Phoebus had not told me long ago
Oh will he come? Or soon or evermore?
Ever ever ever ever ever more?
CHORUS: I am certain he will come again
And lighten our remarks with a religious strain
Or else he’ll say
… (here a line is missing and the chorus finishes)
Ah ah ah ah ah.
The Lesson
Is it Claudius or Clowdius? my little child Harry said,
Harry with his innocent look on his Latin studies.
Ah my son, my little one, draw near and hear
The Claudian story. First it was Clowdian –
The patrician families always preserved the diphthong,
As nowadays we English do too, speaking Latin, unless it is Eton.
When Claudius went to obtain the vote of the Plebs,
They laughed – his mama, his papa, his relations laughed,
‘He is calling it Clodius now, the silly fool, he thinks it will fetch ’em.’
(The common people were naturally slovenly, it was Clo for them.)
But he wasn’t such a silly fool because it did fetch them.
By and by the common pronunciation seeped slowly up
And now is in general use on the Continent.
Call me ’Arry, said the innocent child I was speaking to.
We are not a new family, I said coldly, and I have no vote for you.
On the Dressing gown lent me by my Hostess the Brazilian Consul in Milan, 1958
Dear Daughter of the Southern Cross
Admit your fiery nature and your loss
Your fiery integrity and your intelligence
I admit your high post and its relevance
And I admit, dear Consuelessa, that your dressing gown
Has wrapped me from the offences of the town
From rain in Milan in a peculiar May
From anger at break of day
From heat and cold as I lay
Wrapped me, but not entirely, from the words I must hear
Thrown between you and him, that were not ‘dear’.
Oh that him
Was a problem
Consuelessa, your husband.
He and I ran together in the streets, I think
We grew more English with each drink
And we laughed as we ran in the town
Consuelessa, where then was your dressing gown?
The Portuguese and Italian languages
Drew our laughter in stages
Of infantin
e rages,
This was outrageous.
Yes, I admit your courage, I heard
Heart steel at the word
That found everything absurd,
The English word I spoke and heard.
Tappping at your heels, Consuelessa,
We were children again, your husband and I,
A worthless couple,
Hanging behind, whining, being slow,
‘Where is our wife?’ we cry. (This you knew.)
‘Give us money’ we said, ‘you have not given us much’.
We were your kiddies, Consuelessa, out for a touch.
Yet I admit your dressing gown
Wrapped me from the offences of the town
But never from my own
Ah Consuelessa, this I own.
From rain in May
From the cold as I lay
When the servant Cesare had stolen
The electric fire, the only one,
From disappointment too I dare say
Consuelessa,
It is your dressing gown I remember today.
A Fiend
Little bird of brightest laugh
Joying on the human hearth
In thy playtime lurks a frown
I do not think you are at home.
Bird of laughter, bird of wrath
Dost thou, dost thou see the path?
The door is ope, the skies are gray,
Up, bird, and run away.
He was a bird of highest mettles,
He left the hearth, he left the people,
They said a fiend had called him off
And how he lives in the sky so rough,
They said, Why should our little Dear
Have left us for the open air?
The skies are gray and the wind blows hard,
He would be better in our yard.
Fools, thy bird flies free and high
His laughter is no longer sly
As on earth it used to be,
Now he laughs as one who is free.
Free, free, I heard him pipe
As the wild winds carried him out of life,
And still they say it was a fiend
That tempted him and not a friend.
Le Paquebot
C’est la, la, la,
Le Paquebot a moi,
Dites-moi Goodbye,
Parce-que je go far.
Voice from the Tomb
Old age is unbecoming, so they say
Yes, it is unbecoming, but in this way,
It is an unbecoming of all we’ve become
And so is most becoming and most welcome.
To the Brownes’ Cat
(on my lap, in their car, coming home from Norfolk)
You can’t look out of the window
Because you’re not long enough,
If you want to look out of the window
You’ll have to grow longer.
To the Brownes’ Hamster
(in its cage on Alice’s lap in their car coming home from Norfolk)
Hamster
Why do you make so much noise
In your cage?
Are you a cat or a dog
To be loose too, and have