by Stevie Smith
‘Black March’ (p. 653): SABOSS includes three untitled fragments by Smith (233); the first of these may be an early draft of the poem:
1
He comes to my room
He is as tall & gray as the morning
He stands silently
He has a silent look
He stands by my bed.
He takes my shoulders in his hand
His hand is as flat and gray as the morning
Speak to me!
He does not say a word
I have not heard his voice
2
In the avenue of my faubourg
The white flowers shine under the green leaves
At night time.
The summer sun falls quickly
But not so quickly as your kisses fall
And the flowers
Are not so light as your eyes
3
I love you darling
The moment before it is absolutely certain that you love me
Is flying
This moment
Is like a dandelion puff before a wind that is rising.
‘Grave by a Holm-Oak’ (p. 655): version in New Statesman (21 March 1969) has ‘darling’ for ‘Anna’.
‘The Sea-widow’ (p. 656): in SAMHTO, the drawing appears with the caption: ‘What is the matter with Ireland now?’
‘The Stroke’ (p. 657): ‘M’ is Molly, Stevie’s sister; in CP, two additional stanzas are added from the version Smith recited to Kay Dick during the interview published in Ivy and Stevie:
Oh, feeling of youth, you had better go
You are trapped by my age and deceased too.
Goodbye, goodbye I will send you away,
There is nothing here now to please you.
Then my feeling of youth said, ‘No, I will not go;
I will comfort you with love and pain.
And also, if you like, I can procure for you a potion
That you will not take in vain.
The torpors of age could not seize the notion
To drink of the freeing grain, to measure the freeing grain.
All the same, I should not take it if I were you,
As you always can, but rather see life with me through.
It is not very long compared with geological time,
It is heaven to think of geological time.
The weight lifts … and this gives you a happy mind …’
UNCOLLECTED POEMS (1936–1970)
‘Uncollected’ here means not published in book form in the author’s lifetime. Of the sixty-two poems here, thirty-nine were published in the posthumous MA, pp. 213–350. The additional twenty-three poems included here are:
‘Casmilus’
‘As falls the gravelled grouse’
From the Latin
Portrait of a Fool
Souvenir de Jacky Vandenbroeck
‘The grief of an unquiet mind is a thing accursed’
Death of Cold
This Baronet
Swift to Depart
The Horror of the Midnight
The Angel
Lift Thy Sad Heart
Flounder
The Pupil
Left, Right
Ichabod
‘O Silent Visitation’
Why d’You Believe?
Heartless
I walked in the graveyard …
Have Done, Gudrun
William the Dog
The Hound Puss
‘“Casmilus”’ (p. 661): printed as an epigraph in NOYP, p. 9.
‘“As falls the gravelled grouse”’ (p. 661): from NOYP, pp. 22–3, where Pompey introduces it as an excerpt from ‘an unfinished manuscript of twenty-six pages single-spaced typewriting’. Cf. W. H. Auden, ‘Consider this and in our time’ (1930).
‘Henry Wilberforce’ (p. 661), ‘From the Latin’ (p. 662), ‘Portrait of a Fool’ (p. 662), ‘Souvenir De Jacky Vandenbroeck’ (p. 662), ‘The grief of an unquiet mind is a thing accursed’ (p. 663), ‘Marriage I Think’ (p. 663), ‘Lulu’ (p. 664), and ‘Death of Cold’ (p. 664): published in Granta, 9 June 1937, pp. 479–80.
‘Via Media Via Dolorosa’ (p. 664): trans. ‘the middle way, the way of suffering’: published in Night and Day, 19 Aug. 1937.
‘Sigh No More’ (p. 665): published in Night and Day, 9 Sept. 1937. Cf. Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, III.iii, ll.47–50.
‘Salon d’Automne’ (p. 665): published in Night and Day, 9 Sept. 1937. The account of the annual French exhibition includes allusions to Richard Ansdell’s Stag at Bay (1846) and Edward Poynter’s Faithful unto Death (1865).
‘Sterilization’ (p. 666): published in Night and Day, 21 Oct. 1937. The Greek rhetorician Theopompous was known for his censorious views on the Etruscans.
‘The Word’ (p. 667): published in London Mercury and Bookman (Nov. 1937).
‘Revenge’ (p. 670): cf. John Dryden, Alexander’s Feast (1697), ll.106–7, which was included in Palgrave’s Golden Treasury (1875):
Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries
See the Furies arise!
See also NOYP (p. 162): ‘I came in time to view my absconded pa without indignation […] and if at first “Revenge, Timotheus cried” I late shut up my old Timotheus’.
‘A Portrait’ (p. 673): published in Night and Day, 9 Dec. 1937.
‘Landrecie’, ‘This Baronet’, ‘Swift to Depart’, ‘The Horror of the Midnight’, ‘The Angel’, ‘Revenge’, ‘Lift Thy Sad Heart’, ‘Flounder (Part of an Acrostic)’, ‘The Pupil’, ‘Portrait’, ‘Left, Right’, ‘Ichabod’, ‘On Coming Late to Parnassus’ (pp. 668–73): published in London Mercury and Bookman, Dec. 1937, as a poetic sequence entitled ‘I’ll Have Your Heart’.
‘The Horrible Man’ (p. 673), ‘The Octopus’ (p. 674), ‘As Sways’ (p. 674), ‘Portrait’ (p. 675) and ‘Two Friends’ (p. 675): published in Bystander, Christmas 1937.
‘As Sways’ (p. 674): for final couplet cf. James Gates Percival’s ‘oak by tempest riven’ in ‘Judgment Day’, and for ‘nodding sycamores’ see Frederick William Faber’s ‘The Lammas Shoots’ (1840).
‘“When I Awake”’ (p. 676): from OTF, p. 61. Reprinted in MA with revised lineation.
‘“O Silent Visitation”’ (p. 676): from OTF, p. 122; in the novel, the protagonist introduces the poem by way of contrast to Titurel in Wagner’s Parsifal (1882), who ‘continues to live in the grave’, p. 121.
‘I Forgive You’ (p. 677): from The Holiday Book (1946), p. 170.
‘“The Midwife”’ (p. 677): from TH, p. 191, where the protagonist explains the poem’s first line was taken from a Ministry of Health poster; MA reprint capitalises ‘midwife’ on first line, and adds terminal commas for lines 2–3.
‘The Royal Dane’ (p. 678): from TH, p. 190, where the protagonist calls it ‘Hamlet’s father’s ghost’s farewell to Hamlet’ sung to the tune of Arthur Sullivan’s ‘Of that there is no manner of doubt’ from The Gondoliers (1889).
‘O Lord!’ (p. 678): published in Nimbus 3:2, 1955. A direct translation of Euripides, The Bacchae (405 BC), ll.768–76: in NOYP, Pompey recalls playing second messenger in the school play, and how ‘the last four lines’ of her speech embarrassed her abstemious schoolteacher, p. 136.
‘The English’ (p. 678): published in World Review (1955).
‘Beautiful’ (p. 679): published in the Observer, 8 Sept. 1957.
‘Why d’You Believe?’ (p. 679): published in the essay ‘The Necessity of Not Believing’ (Gemini, Spring 1958); MA reprints the essay but omits this poem. An earlier draft is titled ‘In Praise of Fact (An Objection to some Neo-Medieval Tendencies on the Third Programme)’ and has ‘pet behaviour’ for ‘hard behaviour’ and ‘too I will allow’ for ‘one supposes’.
‘The Vision’ (p. 682): published in Encounter, July 1958; typed draft marked ‘not keen on this one’.
‘Heartless’ (p. 683): published in the Poetry Book Society’s Poetry Supplement, Christmas 1958, edited
by Patric Dickinson.
‘Silence’ (p. 684): first published in Time and Tide, 6 Dec. 1958, although MA presents it as unpublished (p. 236). Author’s own clipping in UT revises ‘time’ to ‘age’ in line 1, and ‘an age’ to ‘a time’ in line 5.
‘The Old Poet’ (p. 685): published in PEN News, Winter 1958–9; authorial note indicates the poem should be sung to ‘Wrap me up in my Tarpaulin jacket’ (1884) by Charles Coote.
‘I walked in the graveyard …’ (p. 685): included in ‘A Turn Outside’, BBC radio play broadcast 23 May 1959 and rpt. in MA pp. 335–59. Cf. Homer, The Odyssey, X, ll.1–50.
‘La Robe Chemise’ (p. 686): trans. ‘flimsy and submissive’, ‘fresh and submissive’. The poem was published in Spectator, 2 Sept. 1960, but Smith worried the poem was ‘a bit slight’ for SP in a letter to Jocelyn Baines.
‘From the French’ (p. 687): a free translation of Arthur Rimbaud, ‘Le Bateau ivre’ (1871), ll.21–29; published in TLS, 9 Sept. 1960.
‘The Holiday’ (p. 687): published in the Observer, 10 Sept. 1961. Smith intended to collect the poem in SP, but sent it to Jocelyn Baines too late for it to be included.
‘When One’ (p. 688): early version of ‘Why do I …’ (p. 587) published with ‘Dear Child of God’ in New Statesman and Nation, 1963: early draft entitled ‘Why’ begins new stanza at ‘Only sweet Death’.
‘Miss Snooks, Poetess’ (p. 689): published in Poetry, November 1964.
‘Saint Foam and the Holy Child’ (p. 689): published in Harper’s Bazaar, Dec. 1966.
‘B.B.C. Feature Programme on Prostitution’ (p. 691): published in Poetry Review, Winter 1967.
‘Pretty Baby’ (p. 693): first published in The Sunday Times (22 Dec. 1968) as ‘Sweet Baby’. Smith retitled the poem so it could be included as a new poem for The Best Beast (1969), forgetting she already published is as ‘Pretty Baby’ in Queen, Christmas 1968; a proof annotation now in UT notes ‘same title used unfortunately – a slip’.
‘Our Doggy’ (p. 693) and ‘My Tortoise’ (p. 694): published in Allsorts 2, 1969.
‘Have Done, Gudrun’ (p. 695): published in The Times (9 Jan. 1970, p. 9) in response to the article ‘One enormous happening, or always five inches off the ground’ by German author Gudrun Tempel, The Times review (3 Jan. 1970), p. 1. The article diagnoses the ‘deadly shock’ of post-Empire Britain which now runs at ‘half-speed’: the article’s title seemed a direct rebuke to Smith’s ‘foot-off-the-ground’ sense of national pride.
‘William the Dog’ (p. 695): published in Allsorts 3, 1970.
‘Sapphic’ (p. 696): published in Scotsman, 28 Nov. 1970. Cf. Sappho’s Fragment 3.
‘The Hound Puss’ (p. 697): published in CATegories: cats according to their characters from Sphinx, Gib-Hunter, Grimalkin, Tabby to Puss (1981) ed. Rosalie Mander, p. 25.
UNPUBLISHED POEMS (1936–1970)
‘Unpublished’ here means not published in Smith’s lifetime, although some have been published posthumously. Poems with approximate dates have been included chronologically: subsequent poems appear in alphabetical order by title. Twenty-four of these poems were included in MA, although alternative drafts have been used in some cases. Although the UT archive includes a number of additional draft poems not included here, the selection includes all poems Smith prepared for publication during her lifetime together with posthumously published poems. The additional twenty-five poems included here are:
Northumberland Park
Fussy
Porgy Georgie
Father Damien Doshing
Bed
Song in Time of War
Mrs Midnight
Professor Snooks Does His Worst with a Grecian Fragment
The Lesson
A Fiend
Le Paquebot
Voice from the Tomb
To the Brownes’ Cat
To the Brownes’ Hamster
Mort’s Cry
Friend and Neighbour
The Publisher
Lord Henry de Bohon
The Stream with Two Faces
Soupir d’Angleterre
Death
She got up and went away
The Easter Rose
The Little Birdies
The Old Soul
‘Northumberland Park’ (p. 701): draft written on the typescript of NOYP, now in BJ.
‘Fussy’ (p. 701): a note in UT indicates Smith hoped to place this poem in Picture Post, which ran from 1938 to 1957: the paper and typewriter suggest a composition date of 1937.
‘Goodnight’ (p. 702): this poem was included in a 1938 letter from Smith to Naomi Mitchison, and published at the end of CP, p. 572. Smith removed it from MWIM on the advice of John Hayward; it was rejected from The Listener by Joe Ackerley on the grounds it would ‘upset far too many of the old ladies’ (2 Jan. 1940, UT).
‘Porgy Georgie’ (p. 702), ‘Father Damien Doshing’ (p. 703), ‘Bed’ (p. 703) and ‘My Earliest Love’ (p. 704) were all considered for inclusion in TOTO and posthumously published in ‘Unpublished Stevie Smith’, Poetry Review, 74:3 (1984), pp. 23–24: Smith considered ‘My Earliest Love’ as the title poem for the collection.
‘The Ballet of the Twelve Dancing Princesses’ (p. 705): cf. Brothers Grimm, tale 133. MA (p. xiv) notes the typescript for this poem is dated June 1939.
‘Song in Time of War’ (p. 706): the MS in UT is included with proofs for NWBD but marked ‘very old (?)’ in author’s hand; the poem’s subject suggests it was written as Smith revised TH.
‘Mrs Midnight’ (p. 707): the MS in UT is written on the back of a draft for ‘Great Unaffected Vampires and the Moon’, suggesting a composition date of 1953.
‘They Killed’ (p. 707): in MS in UT; in MA (p. xiv) editors date the poem from a holograph draft given to Kathleen Farrell.
‘Professor Snooks Does His Worst with a Grecian Fragment’ (p. 708): cf. Aeschylus, Agamemnon (458 BC) and A. E. Housman, ‘Fragment of a Greek Tragedy’ (1883). This poem was included with the proofs for NWBD and marked in author’s hand ‘not used’, UT.
‘The Lesson’ (p. 709): published in MA (p. 222) from typed MS in UT. No date is suggested in MA, but the poem is marked ‘No (?)’ in Laurie Lee’s hand, which suggests Smith was considering including it in NWBD.
‘On the Dressing gown lent me by my Hostess the Brazilian Consul in Milan, 1958’ (p. 709): written after visiting Milan with the composer Stanley Bate and his wife, the Brazilian diplomat Margarida Guedes Mogueria. See SSACB, p. 225.
‘A Fiend’ (p. 711) and ‘Le Paquebot’ (p. 712): sent to James Laughlin (1 March 1963) for possible inclusion in American SP: ‘Le Paquebot’ refers to the international agreement allowing letters written at sea to be delivered with stamps from the ship’s country of origin.
‘Voice from the Tomb’ (p. 712): MS in UT; poem published in SSACB, p. 246.
‘To the Brownes’ Cat’ (p. 713) and ‘To the Brownes’ Hamster’ (p. 713): dated MS in author’s hand in UT. Cf. ‘O Pug!’ (p. 630).
‘Mort’s Cry’ (p. 714): dated MS in author’s hand in UT.
‘Friend and Neighbour’ (p. 714): prepared for publication by Smith in November 1968; an unsent letter to John Guest notes the poems she has included are ‘light but disagreeable’ (UT). An early draft of ‘Friend and Neighbour’ from 1938 was titled ‘First Things Last’.
‘The Publisher’ (p. 715): included in the same letter as ‘Friend and Neighbour’ (p. 714). óμισμα is ‘nomisa’, the ancient Greek for money; earlier draft titles included ‘Mr Snooks the publisher’.
‘Lord Henry de Bohon’ (p. 715), ‘The Stream with Two Faces’ (p. 716), and ‘I thank thee, Lord’ (p. 716): these poems were drafted on the back of a script for a reading Smith gave in 1969, now in UT.
‘Soupir d’Angleterre’ (p. 717): written in response to the investiture of the Prince of Wales on 1 July 1969, and sent to Anthony Thwaite at New Statesman as a ‘nasty poem about the Welsh’ (25 July 1969, UT); see SSACB, p. 288. It was
quoted by Martin Bax in his review of Scorpion, ‘Three Blurbs and a Eulogy’, Ambit no.51 (1972), p. 51.
‘He preferred …’ (p. 717), ‘Like This (1)’ (p. 717), ‘Like This (2)’ (p. 718), ‘Telly-me-Do’ (p. 718): this follows the MS dating in MA (pp. vi-vii).
‘Accented’ (p. 719): typed MS draft in UT; reprinted in MA, p. 227.
‘Cars’ (p. 719): typed MS in UT; fourth stanza is published in MA as ‘No Matter Who Rides’, p. 227.
‘César’ (p. 720): typed MS and various drafts in UT. Cf. OTF (p. 79): ‘the only good thing about Baldur is his fondness for his dog, his dog César, his dachshund that accompanied him round and about the forests of Deutschland’.
‘Childhood and Interruption’ (p. 721): typed MS with drafts in UT; published in MA (p. 234).
‘Death’ (p. 722): typed MS with annotated revisions in UT.
‘Mabel’ (p. 723): cf. NOYP, where Pompey is haunted by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), and the fear ‘she was going to be Mabel’, p. 41. The phrase ‘how awful to be Mabel’ returns in a review, ‘New Novels’, the Observer, 14 Nov. 1954.
‘“Mother Love”’ (p. 723): published in MA (p. 217) from untitled draft in UT.
‘None of the Other Birds’ (p. 723): published in MA (p. 229) from draft in UT.
‘Oh Thou Pale Intellectual Brow’ (p. 724): published in MA (p. 239) from typed MS in UT.
‘Roaming’ (p. 724): cf. ‘Eulenspiegelei’ (p. 104). Published in MA (p. 233) from typed MS in UT.
‘Ruory and Edith’ (p. 726): published in MA (p. 216) as ‘Ruory’ from various typed MS and drafts in UT.
‘She got up and went away’ (p. 726): from typed MS in UT.
‘The Easter Rose’ (p. 727): from typed MS in UT.
‘The Little Birdies’ (p. 728): from typed MS in UT.
‘The Old Soul’ (p. 730): from typed MS in UT. Author’s note indicates the poem should be sung to the folk tune ‘Over the mountains’, famous from the 1922 arrangement by Roger Quilter.
‘The Pearl’ (p. 730): published in MA (p. 236) from typed MS in UT.
‘There is an Old Man’ (p. 730): published in MA (p. 220) from typed MS in UT.
‘Tom Snooks the Pundit’ (p. 731): published in MA (p. 225) from typed MS in UT.
‘Wife’s Lament at Hereford’ (p. 732): published in MA (p. 217) from typed MS in UT.
