Stevie Smith

Miss Snooks was really awfully nice And never wrote a poem That was not really awfully nice And fitted to a woman, She therefore made no enemies And gave no sad surprises But went on being awfully nice And took a lot of prizes. November 1964

In my dreams I am always saying goodbye and riding away, Whither and why I know not nor do I care. And the parting is sweet and the parting over is sweeter, And sweetest of all is the night and the rushing air. In my dreams they are always waving their hands and saying goodbye, And they give me the stirrup cup and I smile as I drink, I am glad the journey is set, I am glad I am going, I am glad, I am glad, that my friends don't know what I think.

I sigh for the heavenly country, Where the heavenly people pass, And the sea is as quiet as a mirror Of beautiful beautiful glass. I walk in the heavenly field, With lilies and poppies bright, I am dressed in a heavenly coat Of polished white. When I walk in the heavenly parkland My feet on the pasture are bare, Tall waves the grass, but no harmful Creature is there. At night I fly over the housetops, And stand on the bright moony beams; Gold are all heaven’s rivers, And silver her streams.

There is a face I know too well, A face I dread to see, So vain it is, so eloquent Of all futility. It is a human face that hides A monkey soul within, That bangs about, that beats a gong, That makes a horrid din. Sometimes the monkey soul will sprawl Athwart the human eyes, And peering forth, will flesh its pads, And utter social lies. So wretched is this face, so vain, So empty and forlorn, You well may say that better far This face had not been born.

Do not despair of man, and do not scold him, Who are you that you should so lightly hold him? Are you not also a man, and in your heart Are there not warlike thoughts and fear and smart? Are you not also afraid and in fear cruel, Do you not think of yourself as usual, Faint for ambition, desire to be loved, Prick at a virtuous thought by beauty moved? You love your wife, you hold your children dear, Then say not that Man is vile, but say they are. But they are not. So is your judgement shown Presumptuous, false, quite vain, merely your own Sadness for failed ambition set outside, Made a philosophy of, prinked, beautified In noble dress and into the world sent out To run with the ill it most pretends to rout. Oh know your own heart, that heart's not wholly evil, And from the particular judge the general, If judge you must, but with compassion see life, Or else, of yourself despairing, flee strife.

Deeply morbid deeply morbid was the girl who typed the letters Always out of office hours running with her social betters But when daylight and the darkness of the office closed about her Not for this ah not for this her office colleagues came to doubt her It was that look within her eye Why did it always seem to say goodbye? Joan her name was and at lunchtime Solitary solitary She would go and watch the pictures In the National Gallery All alone all alone This time with no friend beside her She would go and watch the pictures All alone. Will she leave her office colleagues Will she leave her evening pleasures Toil within a friendly bureau Running later in her leisure? All alone all alone Before the pictures she seems turned to stone. Close upon the Turner pictures Closer than a thought may go Hangs her eye and all the colours Leap into a special glow All for her, all alone All for her, all for Joan. First the canvas where the ocean Like a mighty animal With a really wicked motion Leaps for sailors’ funeral Holds her panting. Oh the creature Oh the wicked virile thing With its skin of fleck and shadow Stretching tightening over him. Wild yet captured wild yet captured By the painter, Joan is quite enraptured. Now she edges from the canvas To another loved more dearly Where the awful light of purest Sunshine falls across the spray, There the burning coasts of fancy Open to her pleasure lay. All alone, all alone Come away, come away All alone. Lady Mary, Lady Kitty The Honourable Featherstonehaugh Polly Tommy from the office Which of these shall hold her now? Come away, come away All alone. The spray reached out and sucked her in It was a hardly noticed thing That Joan was there and is not now (Oh go and tell young Featherstonehaugh) Gone away, gone away All alone. She stood up straight The sun fell down There was no more of London Town She went upon the painted shore And there she walks for ever more Happy quite Beaming bright In a happy happy light All alone. They say she was a morbid girl, no doubt of it And what befell her clearly grew out of it But I say she’s a lucky one To walk for ever in that sun And as I bless sweet Turner’s name I wish that I could do the same.

After reading Dr Rieu’s translation of St Mark’s Gospel. Who is this that comes in splendour, coming from the blazing East? This is he we had not thought of, this is he the airy Christ. Airy, in an airy manner in an airy parkland walking, Others take him by the hand, lead him, do the talking. But the Form, the airy One, frowns an airy frown, What they say he knows must be, but he looks aloofly down, Looks aloofly at his feet, looks aloofly at his hands, Knows they must, as prophets say, nailèd be to wooden bands. As he knows the words he sings, that he sings so happily Must be changed to working laws, yet sings he ceaselessly. Those who truly hear the voice, the words, the happy song, Never shall need working laws to keep from doing wrong. Deaf men will pretend sometimes they hear the song, the words, And make excuse to sin extremely; this will be absurd. Heed it not. Whatever foolish men may do the song is cried For those who hear, and the sweet singer does not care that he was crucified. For he does not wish that men should love him more than anything Because he died; he only wishes they would hear him sing.