The largest website for English phrases and quotes

The largest website for English phrases and quotes

Category: Stevie Smith

I may be smelly and I may be old, Rough in my pebbles, reedy in my pools, But where my fish float by I bless their swimming, And I like the people to bathe in me especially women.

Me, Fish, People

All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an important fellow. There will also be another poet.

Strong, Poetry, Listen

The English woman is so refined She has no bosom and no behind.

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

loneliness, lonely, love, loving, miserable, misery, trouble, unpopularity, worry

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.

christian, christianity, christians, lion, lions, martyr, martyrs, nero, rome

Not Waving but Drowning Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he’s dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said. Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning.

depression, isolation

My friendships, they are a very strong part of my life, they are as light as gossamer but also they are as strong as steel. And I cannot throw them off, nor altogether do with them or without them. And I love them at the point where they say: It is nice to see you again. And I love them too at the point when they say: Good-bye, come again soon. The rhythm of friendship is a very good rhythm.

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 brother,Let it in at one ear and out at the other.

advice, advice-to-young-children, children

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.

hospital, hospitalization, hospitals, life, living, the-world, world

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.

animals, poetry

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.

life, my-heart-was-full, poetry