All the Poems

by Stevie Smith

  The earth a-heap where smooth it should have lain;

  And in and out the tombs great witches’ cats

  Played tig-a-tag and sang harmoniously.

  Beneath the deathly slopes the palings stood

  Catching the moonlight on their painted sides,

  Beyond, the waters of a mighty lake

  Stretching five furlongs at its fullest length

  Lay as a looking-glass, framed in a growth

  Of leafless willows; all its middle part

  Was open to the sky, and there I saw

  Embosomed in the lake together lie

  Great unaffected vampires and the moon.

  A Christian crescent never would have lent

  Unchristian monsters such close company

  And so I say she was no heavenly light

  But devil’s in that business manifest

  And as the vampires seemed quite unaware

  I thought she’d lost her soul for nothing lying there.

  The Celts

  I think of the Celts as rather a whining lady

  Who was beautiful once but is not so much so now

  She is not very loving, but there is one thing she loves

  It is her grievance which she hugs and takes out walking.

  The Celtic lady likes fighting very much for freedom

  But when she had got it she is a proper tyrant

  Nobody likes her much when she is governing.

  The Celtic lady is not very widely popular

  But the English love her oh they love her very much

  Especially when the Celtic lady is Irish they love her

  Which is odd as she hates them then more than anyone else.

  When she’s Welsh the English stupidly associate her chiefly

  With national hats, eisteddfods and Old Age Pensions.

  (They don’t think of her at all when she is Scotch, it is rather a problem).

  Oh the Celtic lady when she’s Irish is the one for me

  Oh she is so witty and wild, my word witty,

  And flashing and spiteful this Celtic lady we love

  All the same she is not so beautiful as she was.

  The Passing Cloud

  from the Royal Bethlehem Hospital

  I thought as I lay on my bed one night, I am only a passing cloud

  And I wiped the tear from my sorrowful eye and merrily cried aloud

  Oh the love of the Lord is a fearful thing and the love of the Lord is mine

  And what do I care for the sins of men and the tears of our guilty time

  I will sail my cloud in the bright blue sky, in the bright blue sky I sail

  And I look at the sea so merrily swung in the path of the Arctic whale

  On the tropic belt of the uttermost wild the sea rings a merry peal

  And the fish leaps up and the sharks pursue in Creation’s happy reel

  Oh I dance on my cloud and I cry aloud to the careless creative gust

  That made us all and made the fish and the ocean that holds them fast

  Hurrah hurrah for the grand old heavenly gusty creator Lord

  Who said to Job, Don’t bother me son, I’ll do as a I please my word.

  Oh never was happiness like to mine as I pelt along on my cloud

  In the sky-blue path of the high winds’ breath, no wonder I cry aloud

  With joy I cried and my cheeks were wet and the air was a singing space

  And I thought as we shot to the upper reach, My lord, it’s a lick of a pace.

  When we swept out of sight of the troublesome earth, was I afraid, oh no,

  I was glad to see the parochial thing pack up its traps and go

  And now I go round and round I go in the merry abyss of the sky

  Piercing the grand primaeval dust of the stars in their infancy

  I tunnel, I borrow, I offer my dust as a dust for creation’s choice

  And in the ding-dong of the universe I pipe my innocent voice

  I pipe my innocent voice I pipe, I pipe and I also sing

  Till I’d sung too loud and woke myself up and that is another thing.

  Oh I woke with a bump and they brought me here to Bethlehem’s Royal precincts

  And do I care? Not I, not I, I have shed all careful instincts,

  I will laugh and sing, or be dumb if they please, and await at the Lord’s discretion

  The day I’ll be one, as one I’ll be, in an infinite regression

  One, ha ha, with a merry ha ha, skip the fish and amoeba where are we now?

  We are very far out, in a rarefied place, with the thin thin dust in a giddy chase,

  The dust of Continuous Creation, and how is that for identification?

  You’ll like it; you must, you know,

  That merry dust does jig so.

  Loin de l’Être

  You don’t look at all well, quite loin de l’être in fact

  Poor pale-face what’s the matter, don’t they know?

  Oh they don’t know, but still I don’t feel well

  Nor ever shall, my name is Loin de l’Être.

  They stood on the empty terrace above the precipice

  When this conversation took place

  Between the affectionate but exasperated friend

  And the invalid. It is not possible to be

  Ill and merry, poor Loin de l’Être sighed

  And forced a smile, but oh she was so tired.

  So tired, called Echo, so tired.

  Now pull yourself together, cried the friend

  Together cried Echo,

  I must leave you now for a tick, she said

  Mind you don’t get edgy looking at the precipice.

  The lovely invalid sighed, Loin de l’être,

  And Echo taking the form of a handsome young man

  Cried, Loin de l’Être and took her away with him.

  Nipping Pussy’s Feet in Fun

  This is not Kind

  Oh Mr Pussy-Cat

  My, you are sweet!

  How do you get about so much

  On those tiny feet?

  Nip, nip; miaou, miaou,

  Tiny little feet,

  Nip, nip pussy-cat

  My, you are sweet!

  Cat Asks Mouse Out

  But then Neither is This

  Mrs Mouse

  Come out of your house

  It is a fine sunny day

  And I am waiting to play.

  Bring the little mice too

  And we can run to and fro.

  My Cat Major

  Major is a fine cat

  What is he at?

  He hunts birds in the hydrangea

  And in the tree

  Major was ever a ranger

  He ranges where no one can see.

  Sometimes he goes up to the attic

  With a hooped back

  His paws hit the iron rungs

  Of the ladder in a quick kick

  How can this be done?

  It is a knack.

  Oh Major is a fine cat

  He walks cleverly

  And what is he at, my fine cat?

  No one can see.

  Parents

  Parents who can barely afford it

  Should not send their children to public schools ill will reward it

  That skimping and saving and giving up

  That seems so unselfish will buy you a pup

  Oh what an ugly biting bow-wow

  Well Colonel, how does it go now?

  Your son aged twenty-two

  wears a glittering blazer

  His conversation about ponds and ducks, oh happy fool,

  Is interrupted to speak of his school

  As if at fault he’d allowed

  Momentarily that pond to draw him from being proud.

  Ah, so hardly won through to it, Colonel,

  Is to attach too much importance to it.

  But he’s saved; ponds, duck, fish in dark water

  Have a tight hold
of him. It is your daughter

  Colonel, who is wholly corrupted.

  Women when they are snobbish do not loaf

  Look at fish, are not oafish

  But are persistently mercenary, cold, scheming and calculating,

  This in a young girl is revolting.

  Oh beautiful brave mother, the wife of the colonel,

  How could you allow your young daughter to become aware of the scheming?

  If you had not, it might have stayed a mere dreaming

  Of palaces and princes, girlish at worst.

  Oh to become sensible about social advance at seventeen is to be lost.

  To a Lady in a Train

  She is not Indian, she’s ill

  ’Tis Death hath darkened that pale cheek of hers,

  No sun of Indian summer in a trench

  Of climate tropical hath made her brown

  That was so pale and fair, a northern girl.

  Now look more close. That colour’s gray not brown

  Death certainly hath hold of her, his fingers

  Stop up the blood to blacken where it lingers

  Death hath her now till gray to black shall turn.

  Ah then her soul now ruffling up befeathered

  In practice for the flight when Death hath done

  Flying shall mock all those who stay at home

  And cry: Begone,

  Cast off from fleshy station,

  Death untethered,

  To heaven flown.

  Seeing her now this day so soon to go

  I would go too

  And I say true,

  If being Indian not ill had put it on

  I should not so much envy her complexion.

  Adelaide Abner

  Adelaide Abner is cruel

  She is grown into a cruel beast

  She does not ask me to her parties now

  She wants to be first at the feast.

  But oh the parties were so beautiful

  And I did not monopolize the faces

  I was only happy to be delivered for a time

  From silence.

  Silence at depth is cold

  It is misty and full of pain

  And because of Adelaide Abner’s cruelty

  I am in silence again.

  Then the girl knelt down and repented

  Of what she had said about Adelaide,

  Was I a true friend? she wondered,

  Yes, I was a true friend, she said.

  I was looking for a venial motive,

  Vanity might change like the weather,

  But oh her heart is cold

  And so it is goodbye for ever.

  The English

  Many of the English,

  The intelligent English,

  Of the Arts, the Professions and the Upper Middle Classes,

  Are under-cover men,

  But what is under the cover

  (That was original)

  Died; now they are corpse-carriers.

  It is not noticeable, but be careful,

  They are infective.

  King Hamlet’s Ghost

  ‘It would be spoke to.’

  Poor noble Ghost that comes from place of pain

  Of so much pain and foul and fiery,

  To tread again in mournful armour clad

  Thy soft gray fields upon a winter’s night

  Thou wouldst be spoke to, for unless one speaks

  Thou canst not; must be spoke to then or go

  Unheard, uncomforted to Misery.

  I pity thy royal brow, thy temper too,

  Thy crownèd brow and the sharp savagery

  That, when thy son had spoke, found out in words

  A long expression of revengefulness,

  ‘Kill, kill the murderers’. All those who go

  In midnight fields of melancholy thought

  Where friends pass distantly and do not speak

  May cry ‘Kill, kill’ for they are murdered too

  As set upon by Silence and quite killed.

  ‘Speak, speak to us’ they cry, ‘I would be spoke to’

  But oh the friends speak not, they have too much to do.

  At School

  a Paolo and Francesca situation but more hopeful, say in Purgatory

  At school I always walk with Elwyn

  Walk with Elwyn all the day

  Oh my darling darling Elwyn

  We shall never go away.

  This school is a most curious place

  Everything happens faintly

  And the other boys and girls who are here

  We cannot see distinctly.

  All the day I walk with Elwyn

  And sometimes we also ride

  Both of us would really always

  Rather be outside.

  Most I like to ride with Elwyn

  In the early morning sky

  Under the solitary mosses

  That hang from the trees awry.

  The wind blows cold then

  And the wind comes to the dawn

  And we ride silently

  And kiss as we ride down.

  Oh my darling darling Elwyn

  Oh what a sloppy love is ours

  Oh how this sloppy love sustains me

  When we come back to the school bars.

  There are bars round this school

  And inside the lights are always burning bright

  And yet there are shadows

  That belong rather to the night than to the light.

  Oh my darling darling Elwyn

  Why is there this dusty heat in this closed school?

  All the radiators must be turned full on

  Surely that is against the rules?

  Hold my hand as we run down the long corridors

  Arched over with tombs

  We are underground now a long way

  Look out, we are getting close to the boiler room.

  We are not driven harshly to the lessons you know

  That go on under the electric lights

  That go on persistently, patiently you might say,

  They do not mind if we are not very bright.

  Open this door quick, Elwyn, it is break-time

  And if we ride quickly we can come to the sea-pool

  And swim; will not that be a nice thing to do?

  Oh my darling do not look so sorrowful.

  Oh why do we cry so much

  Why do we not go to some place that is nice?

  Why do we only stand close

  And lick the tears from each other’s eyes?

  Darling, my darling

  You are with me in the school and in the dead trees’ glade

  If you were not with me

  I should be afraid.

  Fear not the ragged dawn skies

  Fear not the heat of the boiler room

  Fear not the sky where it flies

  The jagged clouds in their rusty colour.

  Do not tell me not to cry my love

  The tears run down your face too

  There is still half an hour left

  Can we not think of something to do?

  There goes the beastly bell

  Tolling us to lessons

  If I do not like this place much

  That bell is the chief reason.

  Oh darling Elwyn love

  Our tears fall down together

  It is because of the place we’re in

  And because of the weather.

  Can it Be?

  Can it be, can it be

  That beasts are of various bravery,

  Some brave by nature, some not at all,

  Some trying to be against a fall?

  I saw a cat. Beside a lily tank,

  Paved level with the grass, she stood, this cat,

  Considering her leap.

  Three times she backed for jumping, gathered tight

  (So tight, thought landed her already over)

  And did not jump. And then,

 
; After a pause, as scolding humanly

  ‘Not nervy, eh? We’ll see.’

  She jumped. And what a jump that was!

  Quite twice as long

  And high

  As it need be,

  Now why

  Did this cat jump at all, so force herself?

  There was a path around the tank,

  She could have walked.

  Can it be, can it be

  That beasts are of various bravery,

  Some simply brave, some not, some taking thought

  (Most curiously) to cast themselves aloft?

  The Old Sweet Dove of Wiveton

  ’Twas the voice of the sweet dove

  I heard him move

  I heard him cry

  Love, love.

  High in the chestnut tree

  In the nest of the old dove

  And there he sits solitary

  Crying, Love, love.

  The gray of this heavy day

  Makes the green of the trees’ leaves and the grass brighter

  And the flowers of the chestnut tree whiter

  And whiter the flowers of the high cow-parsley.

  So still is the air

  So heavy the sky

  You can hear the splash

  Of the water falling from the green grass

  As Red and Honey push by,

  The old dogs,

  Gone away, gone hunting by the marsh bogs.

  Happy the retriever dogs in their pursuit

  Happy in bog-mud the busy foot.

  Now all is silent, it is silent again

  In the sombre day and the beginning soft rain

  It is a silence made more actual

  By the moan from the high tree that is occasional,

  Where in his nest above

  Still sits the old dove,

  Murmuring solitary

  Crying for pain,

  Crying most melancholy

  Again and again.

  The Past

  People who are always praising the past

  And especially the times of faith as best

  Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages

  And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.

  The Singing Cat

  It was a little captive cat

  Upon a crowded train

  His mistress takes him from his box

  To ease his fretful pain.

  She holds him tight upon her knee

  The graceful animal

  And all the people look at him

  He is so beautiful.

  But oh he pricks and oh he prods

  And turns upon her knee

  Then lifteth up his innocent voice

  In plaintive melody.

  He lifteth up his innocent voice

  He lifteth up, he singeth

  And to each human countenance

  A smile of grace he bringeth.

  He lifteth up his innocent paw

  Upon her breast he clingeth

  And everybody cries, Behold

  The cat, the cat that singeth.

  He lifteth up his innocent voice