Three poems by Stevie Smith

Advice to Young Children

'Children who paddle where the ocean bed shelves steeply

Must take care they do not,

Paddle too deeply.'

Thus spake the awful aging couple

Whose heart the years had turned to rubble.

But the little children, to save any bother,

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

(From Mother, What Is Man? (1942))

'Duty was his Lodestar'

A song

Duty was my Lobster, my Lobster was she,

And when I walked with my Lobster

I was happy.

But one day my Lobster and I fell out,

And we did nothing but

Rave and shout.

Rejoice, rejoice, Hallelujah, drink the flowing champagne,

For my darling Lobster and I

Are friends again.

Rejoice, rejoice, drink the flowing champagne-cup,

My Lobster and I have made it up.

(From Harold's Leap (1950))

(From Mother, What Is Man? (1942))