Stevie Smith
Stevie Smith
Florence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smithwas an English poet and novelist...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth20 September 1902
lying may bed
If I lie down on my bed I must be here, But if I lie down in my grave I may be elsewhere.
running hands long
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.
tired ideas want
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....
unhappy doe speak
Why does my muse only speak when she is uhnhappy? She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy.
war heart swings
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.
depressing character interesting
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.
fall water hatred
It is the privilege of the rich To waste the time of the poor To water with tears in secret A tree that grows in secret That bears fruit in secret That ripened falls to the ground in secret And manures the parent tree Oh the wicked tree of hatred and the secret The sap rising and the tears falling.
soul tolls lions
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.
dark night shy
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.
wish cold muse
My Muse sits forlorn She wishes she had not been born She sits in the cold No word she says is ever told.
heart men way
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.
love-is hands bleeding
Love is not love that wounded bleeds And bleeding sullies slow. Come death within my hands and I Unto my love will go.
swimming people may
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.
thinking auden
I don't think Auden liked my poetry very much, he's very Anglican.