Quotes from Stevie Smith

This Englishwoman is so refined She has no bosom and no behind.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I am hungry to be interrupted For 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.

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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