Stevie Smith

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

“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.”

“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 WorldAnd a Child of Grace,And Mother, I shall be glad when it is over,I am Bog-Face.”

“There is a god in whom I do not believeYet to this god my love stretches,This god whom I do not believe in isMy 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 uponAs he is my whole life and I am his.When I am dead I hope that he will eatEverything I have been and have not beenAnd crunch and feed upon it and grow fatEating my life all up as it is his.- God the Eater”

“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 experimentingWith 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 doThen you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go.”

“I am hungry to be interruptedFor ever and ever amen”

“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.”

“It is the privilege of the richTo waste the time of the poorTo water with tears in secretA tree that grows in secretThat bears fruit in secretThat ripened falls to the ground in secretAnd manures the parent treeOh the wicked tree of hatred and the secretThe sap rising and the tears falling.”

“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.”

“Oh Lion in a peculiar guise,Sharp Roman road to Paradise,Come eat me up, I'll pay thy tollWith all my flesh, and keep my soul.”

“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 ropeAnd hangman killed.”

“Children who paddle where the ocean bed shelves steeplyMust take great care they do not, Paddle too deeply.'Thus spake the awful aging coupleWhose 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.”

“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.”

“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 aboveAs I fear the friends below.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“Marriage I thinkFor womenIs the best of opiates.It kills the thoughtsThat 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 feltTheir 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 stayTo trouble her dreams by night and her dreams by day.”

“Wild creatures' eyes, the colonel said,Are innocent and fathomlessAnd when I look at them I seeThat they are not aware of meAnd oh I find and oh I blessA comfort in this emptinessThey only see me when they wantTo pounce upon me at the hunt;But in the tame varietyThere couches an anxietyAs if they yearned, yet knew not whatThey yearned for, nor they yearned for not.And so my dog would look at meAnd it was pitiful to seeSuch love and such dependency.The human heart is not at easeWith animals that look like these.”

“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....”

“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.”

“Raise from your bed of languorRaise from your bed of dismayYour friends will not come tomorrowAs they did not come todayYou must rely on yourself, they said,You must rely on yourself,Oh but I find this pill so bitter said the poor manAs he took it from the shelfCrying, O sweet Death come to meCome to me for company,Sweet Death it is only you I canConstrain for company.”

“My Muse sits forlornShe wishes she had not been bornShe sits in the coldNo 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.”