Quote

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.

Stevie Smith

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Stevie Smith
Age: 68 †
Born: 1902
Born: September 20
Died: 1971
Died: March 7
Illustrator
Novelist
Performing Artist
Poet
Writer
Hull
England
Florence Margaret Smith
War
Swings
Death
Breath
Used
Breaths
Care
Draw
Heart
Glad
Like
Draws
Softening
Full
Swing
Hours
Showers

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I love people, but I love the thought and memory of them just as much.
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I only asked my friends to be friendly and polite, I found them indifferent and censorious The one I left to silence, the other to reproach: God send me over all such friends victorious.
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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.
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The sea was angry that day my friend, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli.
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As Nature is always careless and indifferent Who sees, who steps, means nothing and this is pretty.
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Truth is far and flat, and fancy is fiery and truth is cold, and people feel the cold, and they may wrap themselves against it in fancies that are fiery, but they should not call them facts and, generally, poets do not they are shrewd, they feel the cold, too, but they know a hawk from a handsaw, a fact from a fancy, as none knows better.
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Nothing is more wistful than the scent of lilac, nor more robust than its woody stalk, for we must remember that it is a tree as well as a flower, we must try not to forget this.
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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.
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Death's not a separation or alteration or parting it's just a one-handled door.
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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.
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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.
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There can be no good art that is international. Art to be vigorous and gesund must use the material at hand.
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The human creature is alone in his carapace. Poetry is a strong way out.
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Youth is an arithmetical statement of passing interest, each hour eats it up.
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If a lady comes up to you and tells you that your dear mama is lying in a faint on the pavement round the corner, don't you believe her, don't have anything to do with her, do not go with her into the cab. It is the White Slave Traffic.
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O happy dogs of England, Bark well at errand boys, If you lived anywhere else, You would not be allowed to make such an infernal noise.
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