All the Poems

by Stevie Smith

  The run of this Daimler?

  Or perhaps you would like, Hamster,

  To run behind the car, until

  You get lost and are eaten

  By the puma

  That escaped from Lord Sefton’s zoo

  Not very long ago?

  Mort’s Cry

  Oh, Lamb of God I am

  Too sharp, too tired,

  Make me more amiable, Oh Lamb,

  Less tired,

  No longer what I am.

  So cried poor Colonel Mort, I heard him cry,

  And yet he was a good man and fought energetically,

  His men loved him, his country too, and did not find him tearful,

  Then what a funny cry for him! I thought it made him wonderful.

  Change me, Lord Lamb,

  Leave me not as I am.

  Friend and Neighbour

  I go to church because the Rector

  Is a friend and neighbour

  I lose the war because the general

  Is a friend and neighbour

  I fix the files for the Treachery

  (As he’s a friend and neighbour)

  In fact in everything I am

  A perfect friend and neighbour

  The Publisher

  There was a careful Wykehamist

  (They are quite often rather)

  Who after doing this and that

  Set up as publisher.

  He was an educated chap,

  Except in heart and spirit,

  And mediocrity for him

  Was the essential merit.

  Óμισμα, the moneyed mean,

  No need to shout about it,

  God rest his soul, he’s doing well,

  Oh very well, without it.

  Lord Henry de Bohon

  Leave off your singing, Lord Henry de Bohon,

  Walk silently by my side

  Or we shall have tears by the fall of noon

  And tears at eventide.

  But still the boy sang, and again and again,

  Which drove his poor nurse quite out of her brain

  For all the words this young lord sung

  Was: Bang bang, trouble come.

  The Stream with Two Faces

  The nettle and the bog-wort grew

  Beside the forest stream,

  Toadstools and ground ivy also were there

  And the Giant Hemlock everywhere,

  It was a sombre sight.

  The stream ran black between trees in this dark wood.

  Soon I began to run too. Because I never could

  Stay without feeling peculiar

  In places where great woodlands are.

  Is not this a peculiar plight?

  When I came to the fields beyond the wood, oh then

  I dawdled and laughed, and I laughed to see the stream again,

  It looked so sweet beneath an open sky,

  Pretty stream, I said, I will stay close by

  Your smiling face, and forget in woods you turn black as night.

  I thank thee, Lord

  I thank thee O Lord for my beautiful bed

  Have mercy on those who have none

  And may all the children still happier lie

  When they to thy kingdom come.

  Soupir d’Angleterre

  We have given the Welsh a most awfully

  Nice day out

  And now we never want to hear from them again

  For years, and years, and years,

  And never at all

  In Welsh.

  He preferred …

  He preferred to be a hearthrug sage

  To risk the cold opinion of the world,

  Somewhere within him there had been

  A lack of courage, a nerve failed.

  He was not happy: but then he was not miserable,

  He had money. Sometimes he wrote.

  You might say his character was cast upon him,

  And with it that luck’s lot.

  Like This (1)

  Young Man in an Asylum

  It must be some disease I have

  To feel so lonely like this,

  And not for company I see

  The others like this, like this,

  It only makes me more isolate

  To see another like this,

  Oh nobody like this likes this.

  Or likes another like this.

  Like This (2)

  Young girl in an Asylum

  The greatest love?

  The greatest love?

  There is no love at all,

  What love means is, To Speak to me.

  Not leave me in the cold.

  How very cold it is out here,

  How bitterly the wind blows,

  O Love, why did you dedicate me

  To the snows?

  Telly-me-Do

  Telly me do,

  Do telly me too!

  You have told all the others

  Including your mother’s

  Companion

  So telly me too!

  But they would not,

  I felt quite cut off,

  So I thought I would try

  To burn their house down to make them die,

  But they only laughed and cried:

  ‘Telly me do, Telly me do’,

  Again and again, to mock me.

  Oh what a lot of pain!

  Accented

  I love you, Muse,

  In your arms I lie,

  Speak to me, feed me,

  I am not your enemy.

  Cars

  Out driving one day in the Merc

  With Hassan, a friendly young Turk,

  I said, ‘Tell me, I pray,

  Is the Bosphorus gay,

  Or does the whole thing at times rather irk?’

  The Bristol makes everyone stare

  (Or would, if the brute were still there)

  Some drivers have wondered

  When passed at 200

  Why its makers don’t stick to the air.

  When I drive in my darling Lagonda

  I find I grow fonder and fonder

  In a vacuum, really,

  I love everyone dearly

  But especially I love my Lagonda.

  No matter who rides in my Ford

  Nothing happens at all untoward

  Because I really will not

  Have it. Have what?

  Oh I don’t know … well THAT. In a Ford!

  Surely all souls must rejoice

  Whose passage is made by Rolls Royce

  So delicious the journey is

  Who cares where it finishes?

  Oh this car should be everyone’s choice.

  César

  The animal that most loved Hans

  Was César, his dog-hound

  And in the German forests

  He walked round and round

  Lying snug, beneath a rug.

  And in the German State Railways

  He never made a sound

  Crying César

  Bow wow, sir,

  Are you there, sir?

  Not I, sir.

  Oh ho it was a joke.

  But when the trees came round

  And they left the train

  It was not quite the same,

  Into the forest César ran faster

  And the poor Hans comes pelting after

  Crying César,

  Bow wow, sir

  Come here, sir,

  No fear, sir.

  Oh ho it was no joke.

  What will Hans do?

  Round he wanders

  And there is no one to hold his hand when he wanders

  Where César

  Is now,

  The wicked César,

  Bow wow.

  Oh ho it is no joke.

  Childhood and Interruption

  Now it is time to go for a walk

  Perhaps we shall go for a walk in the park

  And then it will be tim
e to play until dark

  Not quite, when the shadows fall it is time to go home

  It is always time to do something I am never torn

  With a hesitation of my own

  For always everything is arranged punctually

  I am guarded entirely from the tension of anxiety

  Walk tea-supper bath bed I am a very happy child really

  And underneath the pram cover lies my brother Jake

  He is not old enough yet to be properly awake

  He is alone in his sleep; no arrangement they make

  For him can touch him at all, he is alone,

  For a little while yet, it is as if he had not been born

  Rest in infancy, brother Jake; childhood and interruption come swiftly on.

  Death

  There’s a great many things I’d rather not be than dead

  And this is the thought that runs for ever in my head

  When I’m sitting alone or lying on my bed

  What’s life, friend, that you so much should prize it

  Or Death, that you’d think on it to disguise it

  Remembering, not go forth to surprise it?

  It is the end of life, the end of strife,

  A rope, a poisoned cup, a knife.

  It is all this and so all this should only be

  An end, and at the end, not bear thee company,

  Ever at hand and fobbed with an insurance policy

  Keep Death where he would be, in his own place,

  He has a dusky half familiar face

  And waits to do you a last act of grace.

  Last, last and ultimate,

  Not the thought-fellow of your living state,

  Not to be had in mind but only at the end to wait.

  Mabel

  In her loneliness Mabel

  Found the hiss of the unlit gas

  Companionable

  And in a little time, dying

  Sublime.

  ‘Mother Love’

  Mother love is a mighty benefaction

  The prop of the world and its population

  If mother love died the world would rue it

  No money would bring the women to it.

  None of the Other Birds

  None of the other birds seem to like it It sits alone on the corner edge of the outhouse gutter

  They do not even dislike it

  Enough to bite it

  So it sits alone unbitten

  It is always alone.

  Oh Thou Pale Intellectual Brow

  Oh thou intellectual brow –

  The angel said. The boy replied:

  The intellect is but a toy

  And I a medium-sensual boy

  Can hardly hear you now.

  This doll that lies against my side

  Is easy and agreeable,

  And so I like to play with her,

  Come, be sensible.

  The doll rose up with awful frown

  And with the angel fled the town

  The boy waits on, and he will play

  With anything that comes his way.

  He should go up and after them,

  Pray heaven he may do so in time,

  God send him back his angel friend,

  And all the women cried Amen.

  Roaming

  Far from his home he came, the old person,

  Not comely or of much account,

  People thought he was a shifty Eulenspiegel

  Whose nose was out of joint.

  Yet how could a man that was shifty

  Look so purposeful,

  And when he was looking purposeful

  Seem beautiful?

  He had excellent manners too

  And never spoke of Heaven

  Only when he came close up

  You saw he was driven.

  Do I believe in heaven? (he asked)

  What is belief?

  I only know when I speak of Death

  I experience relief.

  But since I was sent to roam

  And given a place to roam in,

  Roam I will with a will of tears.

  Was this wise of him?

  Yes, he was wise to say it

  For being kindly and able to reason

  The people saw they could serve him best

  By giving him poison.

  When he was dead they buried him

  And wrote on his tomb:

  Eulenspiegel

  Who used to roam.

  Ruory and Edith

  Ruory loved the aged Edith

  She lived in kindness with

  And ever had done and ever had done

  In a sweet domestic kingdom.

  And to Aunt Edith the cry went up

  From many an uneven stance

  For Ruory’s soul was pitched awry

  And often went unbalanced.

  Without that lady’s help

  Who so firmly behaved

  Ruory would not be here at all

  But off to the icy glades.

  Then God bless Edith’s kindness

  And her strongmindedness

  And Lord God never let Ruory forget

  The gracious mercies her path beset.

  She got up and went away

  She got up and went away

  Should she not have? Not have what?

  Got up and gone away.

  Yes, I think she should have

  Because it was getting darker.

  Getting what? Darker. Well,

  There was still some

  Day left when she went away, well,

  Enough to see the way.

  And it was the last time she would have been able…

  Able? … to get up and go away.

  It was the last time the very last time for

  After that she could not

  Have got up and gone away any more.

  The Easter Rose

  It was a sweet unnatural rose

  That rose at Eastertide,

  Its heart seemed hardly warmed at all

  By the sun that newly came

  And yet its petals burnt so bright

  They seemed to burn in flame of unconsuming light.

  Why do you come so early, Rose,

  Before your time, and burn so bright

  That your white petals are more like

  A fire than light?

  Then spake the rose: You seem to say

  I come too soon,

  Know then, an afrit planted me

  And bade me bloom

  And swore and said: All who are drawn

  By thy untimely beauty to come near

  To see and then to touch

  Shall their own hearts on fire for ever clutch

  Until God’s judgement day.

  The speaking rose bowed her head down

  I saw a tear fall down

  Beware, she said, for that foul afrit watches

  and I must perish in his fire if I

  Should be seen to warn

  And keep thee from his clutches.

  How could I heed the afrit evil?

  I only thought to save my rose

  From peril.

  And so I plucked her to my heart

  (I heard her groan)

  And as I placed her on my heart

  I felt it burn

  My heart burns now for evermore until the Judgment Day

  And all that cools it are the tears

  That fall by night and day

  From sweet rose whose premature

  Sweet flowering has cost us sore

  To love and burn and cool in tears

  Til the Judgement Day

  When God shall wash all afrits and their

  Works away.

  The Little Birdies

  The little birdies

  Must get up early

  To sing ‘Singsing’ (sing ‘Singsing’)

  To the pretty dawning.

  But when day time

  Is winter time
/>   They get up later

  To sing their

  Pretty song to

  Day’s dawning.

  Sing ‘Singsing’ (sing ‘Singsing’)

  Pretty singsing.

  The birdies

  Would much rather

  Get up early

  They hate

  To be late

  Because then their dawning

  (Pretty dawning)

  Is shared by the morning

  People and the noise they make.

  All birdies

  Would rather

  Have the morning

  To themselves

  To sing ‘Singsing’ (pretty ‘Singsing’)

  To sing singsing to.

  The Old Soul

  When all was young the Race began

  And life was fair in Eden’s span

  But oh the way and oh the way

  was long that then began.

  Oh boys and girls whose laughing curls

  The ancient winds well practised toss

  I’m very glad the way we tread

  is not so long as it once was.

  Then dance with me and don’t mope

  Or ponder or too fondly hope

  But oh I hear and oh I see

  That oh they will not dance with me.

  The Pearl

  Weep not my pretty boy, grieve not my girl

  Mankind is Nature’s pearl

  Not so much for his beauty, being beautiful

  As in that he’s the child of all things irritable.

  There is an Old Man

  There is an old man

  Who sleeps in the park

  When he has no light

  He sleeps in the dark

  When he has no fire

  He sleeps in the cold

  Oh why do you do this

  Old man, so old?

  I sleep in the park

  And by day I roam

  I would rather do this

  Than live in a Home

  I was put in one once

  Where the meth men were

  And they stole my money

  And kicked me downstair.

  So now I sleep

  In the lonely park

  And I do not mind

  If it’s cold and dark

  As soon as day breaks

  I roam up and down

  And when night returns

  To my park I come.

  Oh living like this is much jollier for me

  Than anything I’ve found for the Elderly.

  Tom Snooks the Pundit

  ‘Down with creative talent

  (I have none)

  Down with creative talent,

  Kick it down!’

  So cried Tom Snooks, a literary pundit,

  The tender talent lay where he had stunn’d it,

  He kicked the poor thing dead quite easily and then he cried:

  ‘Hats off, my friends, it was a genius died.’

  Oh long live Tom, long live his reputation,

  (His proper name I’ll give on application).

  Wife’s Lament at Hereford

  The beast

  At the end of the lane

  Has risen again

  And spread his slime

  On my furniture

  Why must the Wye

  Rise so high? He is

  Such a pretty runner between banks.