Stevie Smith

I’ll wait awhileAnd then I’ll go.Why wait at all?Hope springs alive,Good may befallI yet may thrive.It is because I can’t make up my mindIf God is good, impotent or unkind.

So vain it is, so eloquentOf all futility.It is a human face that hidesA monkey soul within,That bangs about, that beats a gong,That makes a horrid din.Sometimes the monkey soul will sprawlAthwart 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…

I like to be held and lightly kissed,Safe from all alarms.I like to laugh and be happyWith a beautiful kiss,I tell you, in all the worldThere is no bliss like this.

Yesterday I hittapotamusI put the measurements down for you but they got lost in the fussIt’s not a good thing to drink out hereYou know, I’ve practically given it up dear.Tomorrow I am going alone a long wayInto the jungle. It is all greyBut green on topOnly sometimes when a tree has fallenThe sun comes…

Then why did he hurry to let him in?He could have hid in the house.It was not right of Coleridge in fact it was wrong(But often we all do wrong)As the truth is I think he was already stuckWith Kubla Khan.He was weeping and wailing: I am finished, finished,I shall never write another word of…

And now in the desolate nightI think only of the people i should like to bite.

Happiness is like England, and will not state a case,Grief, like Guilt, rushes in and talks apace.

Menacing the greatness of our beloved England, they liePropagating their kind in an eightroomed stye.Now I have a plan which I will enfold(There’s this to be said for them, they do as they’re told)Then tell them their country’s in mortal perilThey believed it before and again will not cavilPut it in caption form firm and…

But when daylight and the darkness of the office closed about herNot for this ah not for this her office colleagues came to doubt herIt was that look within her eyeWhy did it always seem to say goodbye?Joan her name was and at lunchtimeSolitary solitaryShe would go and watch the pictures In the National GalleryAll…

I do not ask that suffering shall cease.I do not pray to God to let me dieTo give an ear attentive to my cryTo pause in his marching and not hurry by.I do not ask for anything I do not speakI do not question and I do not seekI used to in the day when…