This Englishwoman is so refined
She has no bosom and no behind.

(Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet, novelist. "This Englishwoman," A Good Time Was Had By All (1937). The title of Stevie Smith's first book of poems is given as the original source of the expression "A good time was had by all" in Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, ed. Paul Beale (1985).)

I am hungry to be interrupted
For ever and ever amen
O Person from Porlock come quickly
And bring my thoughts to an end.

(Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet, novelist. Thoughts about the Person from Porlock (l. 34-37). . . No Nature; New and Selected Poems [Gary Snyder]. (1992) Pantheon Books.)

Cry pretty, pretty, pretty and you'll be able
Very soon not even to cry pretty
And so be delivered entirely from humanity
This is prettiest of all, it is very pretty.

(Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet, novelist. Pretty (l. 33-36). . . No Nature; New and Selected Poems [Gary Snyder]. (1992) Pantheon Books.)

Fourteen-year-old, why must you giggle and dote,
Fourteen-year-old, why are you such a goat?
I'm fourteen years old, that is the reason,
I giggle and dote in season.

(Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet. "The Conventionalist.")

People who are always praising the past
And especially the times of faith as best
Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages
And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.

(Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet, novelist. The Past, Selected Poems (1962).)

Hi yih, yippity-yap, merrily I flow,
O I may be an old foul river but I have plenty of go.

(Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet, novelist. The River God (l. 9-10). . . Faber Book of Nonsense Verse, The. Geoffrey Grigson, ed. (1979) Faber and Faber.)

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.

(Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet, novelist. The River God (l. 1-4). . . Faber Book of Nonsense Verse, The. Geoffrey Grigson, ed. (1979) Faber and Faber.)

Coleridge received the Person from Porlock
And ever after called him a curse,
Then why did he hurry to let him in?
He could have hid in the house.

(Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet, novelist. Thoughts about the Person from Porlock (l. 1-4). . . No Nature; New and Selected Poems [Gary Snyder]. (1992) Pantheon Books.)

As Nature is always careless and indifferent
Who sees, who steps, means nothing and this is pretty.

(Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet, novelist. Pretty (l. 27-28). . . CP-Smit.)

Our Bog is dood, our Bog is dood,
They lisped in accents mild,
But when I asked them to explain
They grew a little wild.

(Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet. Our Bog is Dood (l. 1-4). . . No Nature; New and Selected Poems [Gary Snyder]. (1992) Pantheon Books.)