Deeply Morbid: A Stevie Smith Shrine

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Death

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Death is a recurrent theme in Stevie Smiths poetry. She did not appear to hold much fear for death, but instead seemed accepting of it. According to Macgibbon, James (The Collected Poems of Stevie Smith, 1977, p.9) 'She did not feel that suicide was necessarily wrong, and often discussed the possibility for herself, should life, mentally or physically, become intolerable.'

COME DEATH (1)
 
Why dost thou dally, Death, and tarry on the way?
When I have summoned thee with prayers and tears, why
dost thou stay?
Come, Death, and carry now my soul away.
 
Wilt thou not come for calling, must I show
Force to constrain thy quick attention to my woe?
I have a hand upon thy Coat, and will
Not let thee go.
 
How foolish are the words of the old monks,
In life remember Death.
Who could forget
Thou closer hangst on every finished breath?
How vain the work of Christianity
To teach humanity
Courage in its mortality.
Who would not rather die
And quiet lie
Beneath the sod
With or without a god?
 
Foolish illusion, what has Life to give?
Why should man more fear Death than fear to live?

COME DEATH (2)
 
I feel ill. What can the matter be?
I'd ask God to have pity on me,
But I turn to the one I know, and say:
Come, Death, and carry me away.
 
Ah me, sweet Death, you are the only god
Who comes as a servant when he is called, you know,
Listen then to this sound I make, it is sharp,
Come Death. Do not be slow.