All the Poems

by Stevie Smith

This petal holds a clue

  The face it shows

  But too well it knows

  Who I am tender to.

  Tender only to one,

  Last petal’s latest breath

  Cries out aloud

  From the icy shroud

  His name, his name is Death.

  O Happy Dogs of England

  O happy dogs of England

  Bark well as well you may

  If you lived anywhere else

  You would not be so gay.

  O happy dogs of England

  Bark well at errand boys

  If you lived anywhere else

  You would not be allowed to make such an infernal noise.

  Darling Daughters

  Darling daughters, listen to your mother,

  I must go away and leave you to each other,

  And one shall marry a rich man

  And one shall go on an excursion to the Isle of Man

  And one shall find her way home if she can.

  The Bishops of the Church of England

  I admire the Bishops of the Church of England

  No man can be a Bishop of the Church of England

  And a fool.

  A man can be a Bishop of the Church of England

  And a knave.

  But

  Fortunately

  Few if any of the Bishops of the Church of England

  Are men of ill will.

  They do their best

  To resolve wisely

  To govern effectively.

  They are the butt of the ignoramus,

  Of the sentimentalist,

  Of the man who makes

  Of his own bad temper and incompetency

  A Movement for the Amelioration of the Sufferings

  Of the Oppressed Members of the Lower Middle Classes.

  The Toll of the Roads

  The angels wept to see poor Tolly dead

  He was a harmless simple creature without a thought in his head.

  Oh what is come upon him to make the road his death-bed?

  Eulenspiegelei

  To be so cold and yet not old

  Oh what can ail the changeling child?

  She has an eye that is too bold

  Upon the night. She is beguiled.

  The night is dark and the windowpane

  Holds the rattle of the falling rain.

  Oh look not forth but look within

  Where the room lies safe from the stormwinds’ din.

  The tears upon the infant eyes

  Are held in icy thrall

  And when she speaks contrariwise

  The rivven echoes fall:

  Oh mother come not near me now

  Nor lay thy hand on my cold cold brow

  Few years if any heap on my head

  But I am old as the newly dead.

  Now louder far than the stormwinds’ jar

  And the voice of the mother and child

  Is heard the scritch of the gravid bitch

  That will be so wild.

  Oh what can ail the gravid bitch

  That howls upon the midnight stroke?

  Dear mother dear I cannot say

  Perhaps the devil gave her a poke.

  The changeling child from her bed is gone

  The mother weeps alone

  And the stormwinds beat on the window pane

  And mock the maternal moan.

  Oh whither is fled thy changeling child

  And by what witching craft?

  It was the Eulenspiegel spake

  And as he spake he laughed.

  For well he knew that wrought it so,

  The bitch and the changeling too

  Are vanished away from the stormwinds’ play

  And the stricken mother’s mew.

  The Abominable Lake

  Deep in the still mysterious waters of the lake a world lies drowned.

  How sombre and sad the silent world in the womb of the lake,

  Not the reflection of Tellus, not the arch of heaven

  But an earth and a heaven beyond the dominion of Time,

  Beyond the soft sensual touch of the seasonal flow

  And the inviolable sequence of midnight and noon.

  Poor world, my heart breaks for your sealed inarticulate woe,

  And the tears that are frozen in yours melt to flood in my eyes,

  Overflow and descend and impinge on the waters of the lake,

  And shatter at once the form of the silent world.

  But the teardrops mingle, the waters shudder and close,

  And again and again the sad world is revealed to my sight.

  Then I know, and the knowledge transfixes my sensitive heart,

  Not my tears, nor my prayers, nor my gold shall encompass at last

  A freedom unthought, manumission unhoped, undesired.

  One of Many

  You are only one of many

  And of small account if any,

  You think about yourself too much.

  This touched the child with a quick touch

  And worked his mind to such a pitch

  He threw his fellows in a ditch.

  This little child

  That was so mild

  Is grown too wild.

  Murder in the first degree, cried Old Fury,

  Recording the verdict of the jury.

  Now they are come to the execution tree.

  The gallows stand wide. Ah me, ah me.

  Christ died for sinners, exclaimed the Prison Chaplain from his miscellany.

  Weeping bitterly the little child cries: I die one of many.

  Death’s Ostracism

  He stood in dream upon the brim

  Of a deep sea, his mirth too young for him,

  For all the people that he smiled upon

  Cry: Fool. And they are gone.

  With what hostility

  And pride

  They saw and fled.

  He sighed.

  The sea ran heavy on a core

  Of hidden deep disturbance, ah before

  The dream came had an earthquake first

  The seabed burst.

  Now from the depths

  He sees

  The sullied water rise.

  All is disease.

  And the long reaching waves swing wide,

  Sick with death’s taste upon the flooding tide,

  And dead sea monsters with a deep appal

  Of open wounds upon the water sprawl.

  His foothold slips

  The clay

  Rank with long rains

  Gives way.

  But falling he will call the waves to friend,

  Come cover over all and make an end.

  No use, they will not do it, they swing aside.

  Death’s ostracism in a dream he must abide.

  The Boat

  The boat that took my love away

  He sent again to me

  To tell me that he should not sleep

  Alone beneath the sea.

  The flower and fruit of love and mine

  The ant, the fieldmouse and the mole,

  But now a tiger prowls without

  And claws upon my soul.

  Love is not love that wounded bleeds

  And bleeding sullies slow.

  Come death within my hands and I

  Unto my love will go.

  Parrot

  The old sick green parrot

  High in a dingy cage

  Sick with malevolent rage

  Beadily glutted his furious eye

  On the old dark

  Chimneys of Noel Park

  Far from his jungle green

  Over the seas he came

  To the yellow skies, to the dripping rain,

  To the night of his despair.

  And the pavements of his street

  Are shining beneath the lamp

  With a beauty that’s not for one

  Born under a tropic sun.

/>   He has croup. His feathered chest

  Knows no minute of rest.

  High on his perch he sits

  And coughs and spits,

  Waiting for death to come.

  Pray heaven it won’t be long.

  The Doctor

  You are not looking at all well, my dear,

  In fact you are looking most awfully queer.

  Do you find that the pain is more than you can bear?

  Yes, I find that it is more than I can bear, so give me some bromide

  And then I will go away for a long time and hide

  Somewhere on the seashore where the tide

  Coming upon me when I am asleep shall cover

  Me, go over entirely,

  Carry beyond recovery.

  I HATE THIS GIRL

  I hate this girl.

  She is so cold.

  And yet her eyes say

  She is not so good as gold.

  I should like to kill her,

  But what do I do?

  Kiss her, kiss her,

  And wish that she would kiss me too.

  Infelice

  Walking swiftly with the dreadful duchess,

  He smiled too briefly, his face was as pale as sand,

  He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming,

  Leaving me alone with a private meaning,

  He loves me so much, my heart is singing.

  Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening

  They said: Sir Rat is dining, is dining, is dining,

  No Madam, he left no message, ah how his silence speaks,

  He loves me too much for words, my heart is singing.

  The Pullman seats are here, the tickets for Paris, I am waiting.

  Presently the telephone rings, it is his valet speaking,

  Sir Rat is called away, to Scotland, his constituents,

  (Ah the dreadful duchess, but he loves me best)

  Best pleasure to the last, my heart is singing.

  One night he came, it was four in the morning,

  Walking slowly upstairs, he stands beside my bed,

  Dear darling, lie beside me, it is too cold to stand speaking,

  He lies down beside me, his face is like the sand,

  He is in a sleep of love, my heart is singing.

  Sleeping softly softly, in the morning I must wake him,

  And waking he murmurs, I only came to sleep.

  The words are so sweetly cruel, how deeply he loves me,

  I say them to myself alone, my heart is singing.

  Now the sunshine strengthens, it is ten in the morning,

  He is so timid in love, he only needs to know,

  He is my little child, how can he come if I do not call him,

  I will write and tell him everything, I take the pen and write:

  I love you so much, my heart is singing.

  Come, Death (I)

  Why dost thou dally, Death, and tarry on the way?

  When I have summoned thee with prayers and tears, why dost thou stay?

  Come, Death, and carry now my soul away.

  Wilt thou not come for calling, must I show

  Force to constrain thy quick attention to my woe?

  I have a hand upon thy Coat, and will

  Not let thee go.

  How foolish are the words of the old monks,

  In Life remember Death.

  Who would forget

  Thou closer hangst on every finished breath?

  How vain the work of Christianity

  To teach humanity

  Courage in its mortality.

  Who would not rather die

  And quiet lie

  Beneath the sod

  With or without a god?

  Foolish illusion, what has Life to give?

  Why should man more fear Death than fear to live?

  The Cock and the Hen

  The Cock of the North

  Has forgotten his worth

  And come down south

  In a month of drouth,

  Woe for the Cock of the North.

  The Cock of the Fen

  Has forgotten his Hen

  Has flown from his pen

  And passed out of his ken,

  Woe for the Cock of the Fen.

  The Cock of the North

  And the Cock of the Fen

  Are one and the same,

  And one is the bane

  Of the Hen

  Of the Cock of the North and the Fen

  Who sits in a pen

  Of forgotten worth

  In a Fen in the North,

  Woe for them both.

  Silence and Tears

  A priestly garment, eminently suitable for conducting funeral services in inclement weather.

  From a church outfitter’s catalogue

  The tears of the widow of the military man

  Fell down to the earth as the funeral sentence ran.

  Dust to dust, Oh how frightful sighed the mourners as the rain began.

  But the grave yawned wide and took the tears and the rain,

  And the poor dead man was at last free from all his pain,

  Pee-wee sang the little bird upon the tree again and again.

  Is it not a solemn moment when the last word is said,

  And wrapped in cloak of priestly custom we dispose our dead,

  And the earth falls heavy, heavy, upon the expensive coffin lined with lead?

  And may the coffin hold his bones in peace that lies below,

  And may the widow woman’s tears make a good show,

  And may the suitable priestly garment not let the breath of scandal through.

  For the weather of their happening has been a little inclement,

  And would people be so sympathetic if they knew how the story went?

  Best not put it to the test. Silence and tears are convenient.

  A Father for a Fool

  to the tune ‘Boys and Girls Come out to Play’

  Little Master Home-from-School,

  This is the Parkland you must rule.

  What does it feel like to have a father for a fool?

  Your father mortgaged the estate,

  Lost his money, blamed fate

  And shot himself through the head too late.

  There’s a father for a fool,

  My little Master Home-from-School.

  Why does Auntie wear such funny hats

  And invert her sentences? Now that’s

  Positive proof she must be bats.

  Why has Parker got all the horses out for me?

  Why doesn’t Ma meet the train as usually?

  Here’s hoping they give us shrimps for tea.

  Little Master Home-from-School,

  Your Ma lies dead, she lies too cool,

  She’s stone cold dead of a broken heart, the fool.

  Jingle-jog the horses go,

  And Parker’s thinking what I know:

  Here comes Master Home-from-School

  That had a father for a fool.

  Siesta

  She went to bed

  To doze,

  And rose

  To find that she was dead

  How, no one knows.

  Brickenden, Hertfordshire

  Sitting alone of a summer’s evening,

  I thought

  Of the tragedy of unwatered country.

  O little village of Brickenden,

  Where is thy stream,

  Translucent drain of thy manorial sward?

  Thy sward is green,

  Its source of verdancy guessed but unseen.

  Where is thy stream?

  I have beat every bound of this wild wood.

  I have trod down its spiteful and detaining undergrowth,

  Seeking a broad stream and contented fish,

  Seeking but finding not.

  Now that the sun

  Sou’westering in the sky

  Tells me that evening is come,

  I rest
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  Oppressed

  By the wood’s profligate viridity,

  By thy wood’s sap,

  Child of a moisture that I cannot tap.

  O woods of Brickenden, you have confounded me

  By your appearance of humidity.

  I see the pashy ground,

  And round and round

  My tired feet the rushes twine,

  And frogs croak and the sweating slime

  Is moved about by an ambiguous brood

  Of low and legless life.

  Hadst thou thy stream,

  O wood of Brickenden,

  This had been

  Paradise.

  But thy sap’s virtue comes from dank earth’s sweat,

  And to be wet

  Is not enough, O wood.

  Hadst thou thy stream,

  O little village of Brickenden,

  Thy stream

  Had salined thee

  By virtue of destinatory sea,

  And thou hadst been

  A Paradise.

  But lacking stream

  Art but a suppuration of earth’s humours.

  Sitting alone on a summer’s evening,

  I wept

  For the tragedy of unwatered country.

  Take thou my tears, O Brickenden,

  They are thy rank sweat’s sea.

  The Cousin

  Standing alone on a fence in a spasm,

  I behold all life in a microcosm.

  Behind me unknown with a beckoning finger

  Is the house and well timbered park. I linger

  Uncertain yet whether I should enter, take possession, still the nuisance

  Of a huge ambition; and below me is the protesting face of my cousin.

  The Murderer

  My true love breathed her latest breath

  And I have closed her eyes in death.

  It was a cold and windy day

  In March, when my love went away.

  She was not like other girls – rather diffident,

  And that is how we had an accident.

  Mother, among the Dustbins

  Mother, among the dustbins and the manure

  I feel the measure of my humanity, an allure

  As of the presence of God. I am sure

  In the dustbins, in the manure, in the cat at play

  Is the presence of God, in a sure way

  He moves there. Mother, what do you say?

  I too have felt the presence of God in the broom

  I hold, in the cobwebs in the room,

  But most of all in the silence of the tomb.

  Ah! but that thought that informs the hope of our kind

  Is but an empty thing, what lies behind? —

  Naught but the vanity of a protesting mind

  That would not die. This is the thought that bounces

  Within a conceited head and trounces

  Inquiry. Man is most frivolous when he pronounces.

  Well Mother, I shall continue to feel as I do,

  And I think you would be wise to do so too,

  Can you question the folly of man in the creation of God? Who are you?

  Le Désert de l’Amour