1
Away with them, away; we should not believe fairy stories if we wish to be good. Think of them as persons from the fairy wood.Stevie Smith
2
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. .Stevie Smith
3
God the EaterThere is a god in whom I do not believe Yet to this god my love stretches, This god whom I do not believe in is My whole life, my life and I am his. Everything that I have of pleasure and pain( Of pain, of bitter pain and men's contempt) I give this god for him to feed upon As he is my whole life and I am his. When I am dead I hope that he will eat Everything I have been and have not been And crunch and feed upon it and grow fat Eating my life all up as it is his.Stevie Smith
5
Hope and desire, All unfulfilled, Have more than rope And hangman killed.Stevie Smith
6
Prate not to me of suicide, Faint heart in battle, not for pride I say Endure, but that such end denied Makes welcomer yet the death that's to be died.Stevie Smith
7
There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply--and the thought of Death as a friend. This is the simplest of thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.Stevie Smith
8
If I lie down on my bed I must be here, But if I lie down in my grave I may be elsewhere.Stevie Smith
9
Love is not love that wounded bleeds And bleeding sullies slow. Come death within my hands and I Unto my love will go.Stevie Smith
10
But one wants the idea of Death, you know, as something large and unknowable, something that allows a person to stretch himself out. Especially one wants it if one is tired. Or perhaps what one wants is simply a release from sensation, from all consciousness for ever....Stevie Smith
11
Raise from your bed of languor Raise from your bed of dismay Your friends will not come tomorrow As they did not come today You must rely on yourself, they said, You must rely on yourself, Oh but I find this pill so bitter said the poor man As he took it from the shelf Crying, O sweet Death come to me Come to me for company, Sweet Death it is only you I can Constrain for company.Stevie Smith
12
Marriage I think For women Is the best of opiates. It kills the thoughts That think about the thoughts, It is the best of opiates. So said Maria.But too long in solitude she'd dwelt, And too long her thoughts had felt Their strength. So when the man drew near, Out popped her thoughts and covered him with fear. Poor Maria! Better that she had kept her thoughts on a chain, For now she's alone again and all in pain; She sighs for the man that went and the thoughts that stay To trouble her dreams by night and her dreams by day.Stevie Smith
13
My Muse sits forlorn She wishes she had not been born She sits in the cold No word she says is ever told.Stevie Smith
14
My heart was full of softening showers, I used to swing like this for hours, I did not care for war or death, I was glad to draw my breath.Stevie Smith
15
Wild creatures' eyes, the colonel said, Are innocent and fathomless And when I look at them I see That they are not aware of me And oh I find and oh I bless A comfort in this emptiness They only see me when they want To pounce upon me at the hunt; But in the tame variety There couches an anxiety As if they yearned, yet knew not what They yearned for, nor they yearned for not. And so my dog would look at me And it was pitiful to see Such love and such dependency. The human heart is not at ease With animals that look like these.Stevie Smith
16
Into the dark night Resignedly I go, I am not so afraid of the dark night As the friends I do not know, I do not fear the night above As I fear the friends below.Stevie Smith
17
My friendships, they are a very strong part of my life, they are as light as gossamer but also they are as strong as steel. And I cannot throw them off, nor altogether do with them or without them. And I love them at the point where they say: It is nice to see you again. And I love them too at the point when they say: Good-bye, come again soon. The rhythm of friendship is a very good rhythm.Stevie Smith
18
Oh Lion in a peculiar guise, Sharp Roman road to Paradise, Come eat me up, I'll pay thy toll With all my flesh, and keep my soul.Stevie Smith
19
But human beings must suffer, and must make suffering for themselves, and beat themselves up into spiritual frenzies, and oh death and desolation, and oh night space and horror, and oh keep my dream from me. And how very splendid it is that we can do all this to ourselves and have such a splendid and really ingenious gift for inflicting suffering upon ourselves. For suffering and strain are the gauge of life, and who wishes to live like a vegetable? But sometimes suffering measures life and ends it. And then it is not good at all. And between two people without knowing it a love may grow up, and a link may form, and no one knows or guesses.Stevie Smith
20
I'll have your heart, if not by gift my knife Shall carve it out. I'll have your heart, your life.Stevie Smith
21
The world is come upon me, I used to keep it a long way off, But now I have been run over and I am in the hands of the hospital staff.Stevie Smith
22
Children who paddle where the ocean bed shelves steeply Must take great care they do not, Paddle too deeply.' Thus spake the awful aging couple Whose heart the years had turned to rubble. But the little children, to save any brother, Let it in at one ear and out at the other.Stevie Smith
23
Not Waving but Drowning Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he's dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said. Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning.Stevie Smith
24
Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, For if she were not so loving, She would not be so miserable.Stevie Smith
25
The English woman is so refined She has no bosom and no behind.Stevie Smith
26
All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an important fellow. There will also be another poet.Stevie Smith
27
I may be smelly and I may be old, Rough in my pebbles, reedy in my pools, But where my fish float by I bless their swimming, And I like the people to bathe in me especially women.Stevie Smith