Stevie Smith Poems

Never again will I weep
And wring my hands
And beat my head against the wall
Because
...

It was my bridal night I remember,
An old man of seventy-three
I lay with my young bride in my arms,
A girl with t.b.
...

Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess,
He smiled too briefly, his face was pale as sand,
He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming,
Leaving my alone with a private meaning,
...

Drugs made Pauline vague.
She sat one day at the breakfast table
Fingering in a baffled way
The fronds of the maidenhair plant.
...

Mother, among the dustbins and the manure
I feel the measure of my humanity, an allure
As of the presence of God, I am sure
...

Tenuous and Precarious
Were my guardians,
Precarious and Tenuous,
Two Romans.
...

Nobody knows what I feel about Freddy
I cannot make anyone understand
I love him sub specie aet ernitaties
I love him out of hand.
...

He said no word of her to us
Nor we of her to him,
But oh it saddened us to see
How wan he grew and thin.
...

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
...