All the Poems

by Stevie Smith

  Oh, very well now.

  She is quite recovered, said the dog.

  But a woodcutter has opined

  It was the spirit of Mrs Blow he saw dancing one night

  When a full moon fell on the glade of Cluny

  With her animals, and that

  Clanworthy and Hopdance

  Stood upright upon their hind legs

  Holding the hand of Mrs Blow the widow

  As if she was a child.

  If it was Mrs Blow

  But he said he thought it was the ghost

  Of Mrs Blow, her spirit; and that

  The animals, too, did not look like animals; he said

  It was three spirits playing ring-a-ring

  With crowns on their head.

  So everyone remembered then

  That a long time ago

  The King and Queen had lost their little children

  As

  A great witch had changed the boys into animals

  And the girl into Mrs Blow the widow

  Crying: Hopdance, go Hopdance; Clanworthy go,

  For a hundred and seven years

  Be the animals of Mrs Blow.

  Everyone was glad it had come right

  And that the princes and the princess

  Were dancing in the night.

  Oh grateful colours, bright looks!

  The grass is green

  The tulip is red

  A ginger cat walks over

  The pink almond petals on the flower bed.

  Enough has been said to show

  It is life we are talking about. Oh

  Grateful colours, bright looks! Well, to go

  On. Fabricated things too – front doors and gates,

  Bricks, slates, paving stones – are coloured

  And as it has been raining and is sunny now

  They shine. Only that puddle

  Which, reflecting the height of the sky

  Quite gives one a feeling of vertigo, shows

  No colour, is a negative. Men!

  Seize colours quick, heap them up while you can.

  But perhaps it is a false tale that says

  The landscape of the dead

  Is colourless.

  O Pug!

  to the Brownes’ pug dog, on my lap, in their car, coming home from Norfolk

  O Pug, some people do not like you,

  But I like you,

  Some people say you do not breathe, you snore,

  I don’t mind,

  One person says he is always conscious of your behind,

  Is that your fault?

  Your own people love you,

  All the people in the family that owns you

  Love you: Good pug, they cry, Happy pug,

  Pug-come-for-a-walk.

  You are an old dog now

  And in all your life

  You have never had cause for a moment’s anxiety,

  Yet,

  In those great eyes of yours,

  Those liquid and protuberant orbs,

  Lies the shadow of immense insecurity. There

  Panic walks.

  Yes, yes, I know,

  When your mistress is with you,

  When your master

  Takes you upon his lap,

  Just then, for a moment,

  Almost you are not frightened.

  But at heart you are frightened, you always have been.

  O Pug, obstinate old nervous breakdown,

  In the midst of so much love,

  And such comfort,

  Still to feel unsafe and be afraid,

  How one’s heart goes out to you!

  Archie and Tina

  Archie and Tina

  Where are you now,

  Playmates of my childhood,

  Brother and sister?

  When we stayed in the same place

  With Archie and Tina

  At the seaside,

  We used

  To paddle the samphire beds, fish

  Crabs from the sea-pool, poke

  The anemones, run,

  Trailing the ribbon seaweed across the sand to the sea’s edge

  To throw it in as far as we could. We dug

  White bones of dead animals from the sandhills, found

  The jaw-bones of a fox with some teeth in it, a stoat’s skull,

  The hind leg of a hare.

  Oh, if only; oh if only!

  Archie and Tina

  Had a dog called Bam. The silver-sand

  Got in his long hair. He had

  To be taken home.

  Oh, if only …!

  One day when the wind blew strong

  Our dog, Boy, got earache. He had

  To be taken home in a jersey.

  Oh what pleasure, what pleasure!

  There never were so many poppies as there were then,

  So much yellow corn, so many fine days,

  Such sharp bright air, such seas.

  Was it necessary that

  Archie and Tina, Bam and Boy,

  Should have been there too?

  Yes, then it was. But to say now:

  Where are you today

  Archie and Tina,

  Playmates of my childhood,

  Brother and sister? Is no more than to say:

  I remember

  Such pleasure, so much pleasure.

  The Poet Hin

  The foolish poet wonders

  Why so much honour

  Is given to other poets

  But to him

  No honour is given.

  I am much condescended to, said the poet Hin,

  By my inferiors. And, said the poet Hin,

  On my tombstone I will have inscribed:

  ‘He was much condescended to by his inferiors.’

  Then, said the poet Hin,

  I shall be properly remembered.

  Hin – wiping his tears away, I cried –

  Your words tell me

  You know the correct use of shall and will.

  That, Hin, is something we may think about,

  May, may, may, man.

  Well yes, true, said Hin, stopping crying then,

  Well yes, but true only in part,

  Well, your wiping my tears away

  Was a part.

  But ah me, ah me,

  So much vanity, said he, is in my heart.

  Yet not light always is the pain

  That roots in levity. Or without fruit wholly

  As from this levity’s

  Flowering pang of melancholy

  May grow what is weighty,

  May come beauty.

  True too, Hin, true too. Well, as now: You have gone on

  Differently from what you begun.

  Yet both truths have validity,

  The one meanly begot, the other nobly,

  And as each alone glosses over

  What the other says, so only together

  Have they a full thought to uncover.

  The House of Over-Dew

  Over-dew

  Became a dread name for Cynthia

  In 1937

  It was then that Mr Minnim first began to talk openly

  About his dear wish.

  How dear it was to be

  For all of them!

  Mr and Mrs Minnim had two sons

  Who had done well at school

  And won scholarships to Oxford.

  Their boyhood was a happy time for all. Then

  The elder son married Helen,

  A fellow-student at the university,

  And, coming down, found a good post with sufficient money.

  His wife also

  Had money of her own, they were doing well.

  The young son, Georgie,

  Was engaged to Cynthia. But that did not go so well.

  He took a First in Greats, but then

  The difficulties began. He could not find a job.

  He did nothing, tried again; no good.

  He gre
w sulky. It seemed hopeless.

  It was now that the dread name of Over-Dew

  Was spoken,

  And a scheme bruited. It was this:

  The Minnims were sincere and practising Christians, to Mr Minnim

  Anyone who was not a Christian

  Was a half-educated person.

  It was, for instance, suggested

  That his daughter-in-law should write a Life of St Benedict,

  There was no good life of St Benedict, said Mr Minnim.

  So Cynthia suggested that Helen should write it,

  Because Helen was a Mediaeval History student,

  Whereas Cynthia herself was a Latinist,

  So why not Helen, with her special knowledge?

  But Helen was not a Christian,

  So, ‘No’, said Mr Minnim, she was a half-educated person.

  The Over-Dew scheme was orthodox Christian.

  When Mr Minnim retired from his accountancy work

  He said that they should move from the suburb where they lived

  And buy the house of Over-Dew, which was

  A retreat for missionaries to have

  On their leave-holidays in England.

  And now it was being run, he said, in a fantastical fashion.

  When they bought it

  Everything would be better,

  And different.

  Where was the money to come from? No matter,

  They had their savings, also they had the faith

  Of Mr and Mrs Minnim.

  Mrs Minnim loved her husband

  And was pleased to follow him to the end of the earth, and certainly

  Over-Dew was not that.

  But oh when Cynthia heard that word

  It was the knell

  Of all her life and love. This, she said,

  Is the end of happy days, and the beginning

  Of calamity. Over-Dew, she thought,

  Shall be the death of my love and the death of life.

  For to that tune, she thought,

  Shall come up a European war and personal defeat.

  The Georgie situation

  Was already sad. What could she do there? Nothing,

  But see him and be silent and so enrage,

  Or see him and speak, and the more enrage.

  The wise and affectionate Cynthia

  Must break the engagement and give back the ring.

  There is nothing but this that she can do.

  She takes up a post at London University

  And in lecturing and study passes the days.

  No more of that.

  She had read a paper to her pupils

  And fellow-dons, the subject is

  The development of Latin from the first early growth

  Upon the Grecian models. The study entrances,

  She finds and reads a Latin prayer:

  ‘I devote to Hades and Destruction’. It is a prayer

  For time of battle, the thought is this:

  I dedicate the enemy to Hades and Destruction. And perhaps

  One or two of the praying Romans

  Will devote also themselves

  To Hades and Destruction. Rushing then into battle,

  These ‘devoted’ people hope they may be killed. If not,

  They are held for dead,

  They are stateless, and in religion

  Have no part at all. The gods have not accepted them,

  They are alive, but yet they are destroyed.

  In Cynthia’s life, this sad year

  Was twice as long as all the happy years before. She must now

  Withdraw from Georgie and see him miserable.

  She is at work and fast within her family,

  The happy careless laughter

  Of the brothers and sisters

  Rings her round,

  She has the home tasks, too,

  And thinks of Georgie.

  At the end of the year, in the bitter snow that fell that Christmas

  The phrenzied Minnims

  Moved from their life-long-suburb.

  The house of Over-Dew

  Lay buried half in snow,

  It stood five miles from any town upon a hillside.

  Very bleak it was, and all the pipes were froze.

  Mrs Minnim worked hard,

  They had a girl to help them then she left.

  Mrs Minnim had courage and was cheerful

  But she was by now an old lady. Suddenly

  There was the gift of a little money. Mr Minnim

  Bought chasubles for visiting priests. But at first

  There were no visitors at all, but only

  The old cold house, and the lavatories frozen up

  And wood kindling to be chopped and dried.

  The work was bitter hard.

  Mr Minnim, released suddenly

  From the routine of his accountancy

  Suffered in his head a strange numbness,

  He moved about in a dream, would take no hand with the dishes. Even

  When five-and-twenty missionaries came for a conference

  He would do nothing.

  He paced the garden plots, ‘And here’ he said,

  ‘I will build twelve lavatories. And in this room

  We will have a consecration and build an altar.’

  The thaw came and turned all to mud and slush,

  There was still no post for Georgie, he came down from Oxford

  And washed the dishes for his mother,

  And chopped the wood and moved also in a daze,

  The immense learning

  Lay off from him, the crude work of the house

  Was an excuse from study.

  But now Mrs Minim was not happy, like a sad animal

  She roamed the rooms of Over-Dew. This woman

  Who had been so boisterous and so loving

  With many friends, but still her own best thoughts

  For Mr Minnim and their sons,

  Was like a sad animal that cannot know a reason

  Georgie, with the guilt of the excuse upon his heart,

  Grew savage with her. The moody silences

  Were shot with cruel words

  It was so bitter cold within the house

  Though now without the snow was melted and turned to slush.

  The money situation preyed upon the mind of Mrs Minnim.

  But her husband

  Spoke of faith.

  In the suburb where they once lived friends said:

  How are the Minnims? Did you hear

  That Mr Minnim has bought chasubles?

  And then the foolish, unkind laughter: Chasubles!

  It will be

  The ruin of them, the end.

  There was one hope that Mrs Minnim had, it was this,

  That they might return at last to their house in the suburb,

  She had refused to let her husband

  Sell this house. No, that she would not allow. No,

  That must be for a return.

  But now, out of this refusal was made

  The bitterness of their life at Over-Dew. For, said her husband,

  You kept back the seven hundred and fifty pounds

  We might have had for selling the house.

  In London

  The girl who should have been Georgie’s wife

  Hears all; understands; loves Georgie; is helpless; reads to her class

  The Latin prayer: I devote to Hades and Destruction.

  She rules the harsh thoughts that run; cries;

  ‘Come, love of God.’

  Oblivion

  It was a human face in my oblivion

  A human being and a human voice

  That cried to me, Come back, come back, come back.

  But I would not, I said I would not come back.

  It was so sweet in my oblivion

  There was a sweet mist wrapped round about

  And I trod in a sweet and milky sea, knee deep,

  That was so pretty a
nd so beautiful, growing deeper.

  But still the voice cried out, Come back, come back,

  Come back to me from sweet oblivion!

  It was a human and related voice

  That cried to me in pain. So I turned back.

  I cannot help but like Oblivion better

  Than being a human heart and human creature,

  But I can wait for her, her gentle mist

  And those sweet seas that deepen are my destiny

  And must come even if not soon.

  The Galloping Cat

  Oh I am a cat that likes to

  Gallop about doing good

  So

  One day when I was

  Galloping about doing good, I saw

  A Figure in the path; I said:

  Get off! (Because

  I am a cat that likes to

  Gallop about doing good)

  But he did not move, instead

  He raised his hand as if

  To land me a cuff

  So I made to dodge so as to

  Prevent him bringing it orf,

  Un-for-tune-ately I slid

  On a banana skin

  Some Ass had left instead

  Of putting in the bin. So

  His hand caught me on the cheek

  I tried

  To lay his arm open from wrist to elbow

  With my sharp teeth

  Because I am

  A cat that likes to gallop about doing good.

  Would you believe it?

  He wasn’t there

  My teeth met nothing but air,

  But a Voice said: Poor Cat

  (Meaning me) and a soft stroke

  Came on me head

  Since when

  I have been bald

  I regard myself as

  A martyr to doing good.

  Also I heard a swoosh,

  As of wings, and saw

  A halo shining at the height of

  Mrs Gubbins’s backyard fence,

  So I thought: What’s the good

  Of galloping about doing good

  When angels stand in the path

  And do not do as they should

  Such as having an arm to be bitten off

  All the same I

  Intend to go on being

  A cat that likes to

  Gallop about doing good

  So

  Now with my bald head I go,

  Chopping the untidy flowers down, to and fro,

  An’ scooping up the grass to show

  Underneath

  The cinder path of wrath

  Ha ha ha ha, ho,

  Angels aren’t the only ones who do not know

  What’s what and that

  Galloping about doing good

  Is a full-time job

  That needs

  An experienced eye of earthly

  Sharpness, worth I dare say

  (If you’ll forgive a personal note)

  A good deal more

  Than all that skyey stuff

  Of angels that make so bold as

  To pity a cat like me that

  Gallops about doing good.

  Hippy-Mo

  I had a sweet bird