I love reading Stevie Smith. She always cheers me up, or haunts me, even when it is a poem I have read several times. She is the girl with whom I run away into the woods, the older sister I curl up against, knowing that she is as frightened as I am but pretends that being lost is quite fun, really. Not that she does not acknowledge her own fears. But she tells of them in stories that charm me, and make me laugh or cry. Scorpion 'This night shall thy soul be required of thee' My soul is never required of me It always has to be somebody else of course Will my soul be required of me tonight perhaps? (I often wonder what it will be like To have one's soul required of one But all I can think of is the Out-Patients' Department-- 'Are you Mrs Briggs, dear?' No, I am Scorpion.) I should like my soul to be required of me, so as To waft over grass till it comes to the blue sea I am very fond of grass, I always have been, but there must Be no cow, person or house to be se...
