Stevie Smith Quotes

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.

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.

Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, For if she were not so loving, She would not be so miserable.

If there wasn't death, I think you couldn't go on.

I'll have your heart, if not by gift my knife Shall carve it out. I'll have your heart, your life.

My Muse sits forlorn She wishes she had not been born She sits in the cold No word she says is ever told.

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.

If I lie down on my bed I must be here, But if I lie down in my grave I may be elsewhere.

Hope and desire, All unfulfilled, Have more than rope And hangman killed.

Marriage I think For women Is the best of opiates. It kills the thoughts That think about the thoughts, It is the best of opiates. So said Maria. But too long in solitude she'd dwelt, And too long her thoughts had felt Their strength. So when the man drew near, Out popped her thoughts and covered him with fear. Poor Maria! Better that she had kept her thoughts on a chain, For now she's alone again and all in pain; She sighs for the man that went and the thoughts that stay To trouble her dreams by night and her dreams by day.

Prate not to me of suicide, Faint heart in battle, not for pride I say Endure, but that such end denied Makes welcomer yet the death that's to be died.

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.

Some are born for peace and joy Some are born for sorrow But only for a day as we Shall not be here tomorrow

Love me, Love me, I cried to the rocks and the trees, And Love me, they cried again, but it was only to tease. Once I cried Love me to the people, but they fled like a dream, And when I cried Love to my friend, she began to scream. Oh why do they leave me, the beautiful people, and only the rocks remain, To cry Love me, as I cry Love me, and Love me again.

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.

Away with them, away; we should not believe fairy stories if we wish to be good. Think of them as persons from the fairy wood.

I am hungry to be interrupted For ever and ever amen

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.

The pleasures of friendship are exquisite, How pleasant to go to a friend on a visit! I go to my friend, we walk on the grass, And the hours and moments like minutes pass.

Raise from your bed of languor Raise from your bed of dismay Your friends will not come tomorrow As they did not come today You must rely on yourself, they said, You must rely on yourself, Oh but I find this pill so bitter said the poor man As he took it from the shelf Crying, O sweet Death come to me Come to me for company, Sweet Death it is only you I can Constrain for company.

Dear little Bog-Face, Why are you so cold? And why do you lie with your eyes shut?-- You are not very old. I am a Child of this World And a Child of Grace, And Mother, I shall be glad when it is over, I am Bog-Face.

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....

Love is not love that wounded bleeds And bleeding sullies slow. Come death within my hands and I Unto my love will go.

We carry our own wilderness with us.

There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply--and the thought of Death as a friend. This is the simplest of thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.

Wild creatures' eyes, the colonel said, Are innocent and fathomless And when I look at them I see That they are not aware of me And oh I find and oh I bless A comfort in this emptiness They only see me when they want To pounce upon me at the hunt; But in the tame variety There couches an anxiety As if they yearned, yet knew not what They yearned for, nor they yearned for not. And so my dog would look at me And it was pitiful to see Such love and such dependency. The human heart is not at ease With animals that look like these.

I am a forward-looking girl and don't stay where I am. "Left right, Be bright," as I said in my poem. That's on days when I am one big bounce, and have to go careful then not to be a nuisance. But later I get back to my own philosophical outlook that keeps us all kissable.

And soon all our minds will be flat as a pancake, With no room for genius exaltation or heartache. And our children and theirs will preen, smirk and chatter, With not even the sense to ask what is the matter.

There is a god in whom I do not believe Yet to this god my love stretches, This god whom I do not believe in is My whole life, my life and I am his. Everything that I have of pleasure and pain (Of pain, of bitter pain and men's contempt) I give this god for him to feed upon As he is my whole life and I am his. When I am dead I hope that he will eat Everything I have been and have not been And crunch and feed upon it and grow fat Eating my life all up as it is his. - God the Eater

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.

Death's not a separation or alternation or parting it's just a one-handled door" - from "Mrs Simpkins

But oh how sure I am that it is so much better to have love with all its pains and terrors and fanaticism than to live untouched the life of the vegetable. But how it tears one, and how unruhig it is.

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 taking about. - Oh grateful colours; bright looks!

Children who paddle where the ocean bed shelves steeply Must take great care they do not, Paddle too deeply.' Thus spake the awful aging couple Whose heart the years had turned to rubble. But the little children, to save any bother, Let it in at one ear and out at the other.

But human beings must suffer, and must make suffering for themselves, and beat themselves up into spiritual frenzies, and oh death and desolation, and oh night space and horror, and oh keep my dream from me. And how very splendid it is that we can do all this to ourselves and have such a splendid and really ingenious gift for inflicting suffering upon ourselves. For suffering and strain are the gauge of life, and who wishes to live like a vegetable? But sometimes suffering measures life and ends it. And then it is not good at all. And between two people without knowing it a love may grow up, and a link may form, and no one knows or guesses.

Ceux qui luttent ce sont ceux qui vivent.. And down here they luttent a very great deal indeed.. But if life be the desideratum,. why grieve,. ils vivent..

Hope and desire, All unfulfilled. Have more than rope And hangman killed.

My life is vile I hate it so I'll wait awhile And then I'll go. Why wait at all? Hope springs alive, Good may befall I yet may thrive. It is because I can't make up my mind If God is good, impotent or unkind. - The Reason

Now when a people has dictators, that is a symptom that they are running mad. They should be watched. I think they should be watched very closely. And later they should be prevented. Now think it is not a nation but an individual, now see, this is like he had a disease.

Stevie Smith.

I. An Agnostic (__of his religious friend__) He often gazes on the air And sees quite plain what is not there Peopling the wholesome void with horrid shapes Which he manoeuvres in religious japes. And yet he is more gracious than I, He has such a gracious personality. II. A Religious Man (__of his agnostic friend__) He says that religious thought and all our nerviness Is because of the great shock it was for all of us Long, long ago when animal turned human being Which is more than enough to account for everything... And yet he is more gracious than I, He has such a gracious personality.

One of the greatest qualities which have made the English a great people is their eminently sane, reasonable, fairminded inability to conceive that any viewpoint save their own can possibly have the slightest merit.

mutatis mutandis

Stevie Smith calling Death the only god who must come when he’s called tickled you pink, as did the various ways people have said that were it not for suicide they could not go on.

So what are they about? Oh people, said the young man. People? said the countess-ah, they are very difficult.

Oh, I say, if we were meant to come back to God, why were we sent out, why were we sent away? I wish for innocence more than anything, but I am conscious only of corruption.

So that in one long book, said Caz, there may be only two thoughts of beauty and of worth, and for these two thoughts the reader must plunge and dive.

[…] he said that it was better to cry for love than for fear, but best of all for repentance.

And it is this merry heart, he goes on to explain, and how it must be cantered in God, for this merry heart has a holy lightness that has nothing to do with outside excitements, no, it is centred in God and happy, because it knows that not all of itself can be good, or anything, but only in and through God.