{"author":"Stevie Smith","author_id":"Stevie+Smith","total_quotes":27,"quotes":[{"text":"Raise from your bed of languorRaise from your bed of dismayYour friends will not come tomorrowAs they did not come todayYou must rely on yourself, they said,You must rely on yourself,Oh but I find this pill so bitter said the poor manAs he took it from the shelfCrying, O sweet Death come to meCome to me for company,Sweet Death it is only you I canConstrain for company.","author":"Stevie Smith","tags":["death","poetry"],"id":28268,"author_id":"Stevie+Smith"},{"text":"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.","author":"Stevie Smith","tags":["me","fish","people "],"id":65293,"author_id":"Stevie+Smith"},{"text":"My Muse sits forlornShe wishes she had not been bornShe sits in the coldNo word she says is ever told.","author":"Stevie Smith","tags":["poetry","writing"],"id":72651,"author_id":"Stevie+Smith"},{"text":"If I lie down on my bed I must be here,But if I lie down in my grave I may be elsewhere.","author":"Stevie Smith","tags":["afterlife","afterworld","death"],"id":101789,"author_id":"Stevie+Smith"},{"text":"It is the privilege of the richTo waste the time of the poorTo water with tears in secretA tree that grows in secretThat bears fruit in secretThat ripened falls to the ground in secretAnd manures the parent treeOh the wicked tree of hatred and the secretThe sap rising and the tears falling.","author":"Stevie Smith","tags":["childe-rolandine","employment","hope","poor","rich","work"],"id":113294,"author_id":"Stevie+Smith"},{"text":"Marriage I thinkFor womenIs the best of opiates.It kills the thoughtsThat think about the thoughts,It is the best of opiates.So said Maria.But too long in solitude she'd dwelt,And too long her thoughts had feltTheir strength. So when the man drew near,Out popped her thoughts and covered him with fear.Poor Maria! Better that she had kept her thoughts on a chain,For now she's alone again and all in pain;She sighs for the man that went and the thoughts that stayTo trouble her dreams by night and her dreams by day.","author":"Stevie Smith","tags":["marriage","poetry","women"],"id":125838,"author_id":"Stevie+Smith"},{"text":"Hope and desire,All unfulfilled,Have more than ropeAnd hangman killed.","author":"Stevie Smith","tags":["desire","hope"],"id":207769,"author_id":"Stevie+Smith"},{"text":"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.","author":"Stevie Smith","tags":["life","my-heart-was-full","poetry"],"id":225542,"author_id":"Stevie+Smith"},{"text":"But human beings must suffer, and must make suffering for themselves, and beat themselves up into spiritual frenzies, and oh death and desolation, and oh night space and horror, and oh keep my dream from me. And how very splendid it is that we can do all this to ourselves and have such a splendid and really ingenious gift for inflicting suffering upon ourselves. For suffering and strain are the gauge of life, and who wishes to live like a vegetable?But sometimes suffering measures life and ends it. And then it is not good at all. And between two people without knowing it a love may grow up, and a link may form, and no one knows or guesses.","author":"Stevie Smith","tags":["humanity","love","suffering"],"id":229998,"author_id":"Stevie+Smith"},{"text":"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.","author":"Stevie Smith","tags":["advice","advice-to-young-children","children"],"id":257337,"author_id":"Stevie+Smith"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":27,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}