Stevie Smith: Away, Melancholy

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People collect water from a water tanker, in Bhiwandi, some 60 kilometer on the outskirts of Mumbai. According to reports, 21 districts in Maharashtra are drought-affected. The drought, which has been ongoing for the past five months: photo by Divyakant Solanki/EPA, 22 April 2016

People collect water from a water tanker, in Bhiwandi, some 60 kilometer on the outskirts of Mumbai. According to reports, 21 districts in Maharashtra are drought-affected. The drought, which has been ongoing for the past five months: photo by Divyakant Solanki/EPA, 22 April 2016

Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.

Are not the trees green,
The earth as green?
Does not the wind blow,
Fire leap and the rivers flow?
Away melancholy.

The ant is busy
He carrieth his meat,
All things hurry
To be eaten or eat.
Away, melancholy.

Man, too, hurries,
Eats, couples, buries,
He is an animal also
With a hey ho melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.

Man of all creatures
Is superlative
(Away melancholy)
He of all creatures alone
Raiseth a stone
(Away melancholy)
Into the stone, the god
Pours what he knows of good
Calling, good, God.
Away melancholy, let it go.

Speak not to me of tears,
Tyranny, pox, wars,
Saying, Can God
Stone of man's thoughts, be good?
Say rather it is enough
That the stuffed
Stone of man's good, growing,
By man's called God.
Away, melancholy, let it go.

Man aspires
To good,
To love
Sighs;

Beaten, corrupted, dying
In his own blood lying
Yet heaves up an eye above
Cries, Love, love.
It is his virtue needs explaining,
Not his failing.

Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go 

Florence Margaret ("Stevie") Smith (1902-1971): Away, Melancholy, from Not Waving But Drowning, 1957

 

Soldiers salute Mexico's Defense Secretary General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda at the Number 1 military camp in Mexico City: photo by Marco Ugarte / AP, 16 April 2016

 

Tens of thousands of vehicles that were seized by police forces due to traffic violations at a makeshift impound in the Wadi Laban suburb, west of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP, 15 April 2016

 

Teresita Gapayao, 51, a scavenger for 12 years, wades through garbage using a makeshift raft made from styrofoam on the Estero de Vitas tiver in Tondo, Manila, on April 21, 2016. Gapayao collects plastic bottles and anything that can be sold to junkshops as a living earning an average of $3 a day.: photo by Noel Celis / AFP

Afghan farmers harvest opium sap from a poppy field in the Chaparhar district of Nangarhar province on April 19, 2016. Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan dropped 19 percent in 2015 compared to the previous year, according to figures from the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics and United Nations Oiffce on Drugs and Crime: photo by Noorullah Shirzada / AFP, 19 April 2016
  

  
An Israeli woman takes a selfie in a buttercup field near Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak in southern Israel, just outside the Gaza Strip: photo by Jorge Silva / Reuters, 18 April 2016

  

 A farmer plants potatoes in his field in Tilloy lez Cambrai, France: photo by Pascal Rossignol / Reuters, 18 April 2016

 

Men look at a destroyed building in the town of Portoviejo, Ecuador, almost a week after a powerful quake hit the country: photo by Juan Cevallos / AFP, 21 April 2016

 

The shadow of 34-year-old Renante Nodalo is reflected on a door as he takes care of a rooster to be used for cockfighting in Manila, Philippines: photo by Aaron Favila / AP, 20 April 2016
  

 

Two eaglets watch a bald eagle fly from their nest over the Raccoon River, at Gray's Lake Park in Des Moines, Iowa: photo by Charlie Neibergall / AP, 18 April 2016

 

 

Wild bluebells, which bloom around mid-April, turning the forest completely blue, form a carpet in the Hallerbos, also known as the “Blue Forest,” near the Belgian city of Halle, Belgium: photo by Yves Herman / Reuters. 17 April 2016

 

 

Villarrica Volcano and Trancura river are seen at night in Chile: photo by Cristobal Saavedra / Reuters, 17 April 2016

Picture of the so-called ‘Wall of Shame’ in the outskirts of Lima, Peru. The place began to be populated 20 years ago, with migration of Andean people displaced by poverty and violence of the guerrillas from the countryside to the city. The 10-kilometer-long wall separates dusty huts without electricity or water from mansions with swimming pools and green areas.: photo by Ernesto Benavides / AFP, 8 April 2016
 

 
An Iraqi soldier inspects a tunnel as he holds a position on the frontline in the town of Kharbardan, during military operations to recapture the northern Nineveh province from ISIS jihadists: photo by Safin Hamed / AFP, 9 April 2016  

Firemen rescue a boy whose head is stuck between protective bars outside a window in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China: photo by Reuters, 11 April 2016 

Suad Keserovic cleans a stone ball in Podubravlje village near Zavidovici, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. Keserovic claims that the stone sphere is 3.3 meters in diameter and estimates its weight to be about 35 tons. Hundreds of tourists from around the world have visited this stone.: photo by Dado Ruvic / Reuters, 11 April 2016

 

The journalist Hassan Hanafi, convicted of murdering colleagues for the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab jihadist group, is tied to a wooden post before being executed by firing squad at a police academy square in Mogadishu. Hassan Hanafi, was sentenced to death last month after military judges said he had confessed to his role in the killing of five journalists after being arrested in August of 2014 in Kenya and extradited to Somalia.: photo by Mohamed Abdiwahab / AFP, 11 April 2016

 

Tourists view Buddhist sculptures at Longmen Grottoes, in the outskirts of Luoyang of Henan Province, China. Longmen Grottoes comprises more than 2,300 caves and niches carved into the steep limestone cliffs over a 1-kilometer-long stretch, containing the largest collection of Chinese art of the late Northern Wei and Tang Dynasties (316-907).: photo by Lintao Zhang, 10 April 2016 

 An eight-month-old baby is carried away by rescue workers after being rescued from her collapsed home caused by an earthquake in Mashiki town, Kumamoto prefecture, southern Japan: photo by Daisuke Wada/Mainichi Shimbun/Reuters, 15 April 2016

An eight-month-old baby is carried away by rescue workers after being rescued from her collapsed home caused by an earthquake in Mashiki town, Kumamoto prefecture, southern Japan: photo by Daisuke Wada/Mainichi Shimbun/Reuters, 15 April 2016

A child sits in an area affected by drought in the southern outskirts of Tegucigalpa: photo by Orlando Sierra/AFP, 22 April 2016
 

A man who lives in the surroundings of La Cangreja River uses an improvised raft in northeastern San Jose, Costa Rica. Although Costa Rica maintains 25% of its protected territory, the country is losing its biological resources, mainly due to climate change, pollution and lack of awareness of the population on the handling of recyclable waste.: photo by Jeffrey Arguedas/EPA, 21 April 2016

A Kashmiri fisherman rows his Shikara, or traditional boat, during sunset at the Dal Lake in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. Nestled in the Himalayan mountains and known for its beautiful lakes and saucer-shaped valleys, the Indian portion of Kashmir, is also one of the most militarized places on earth.: photo by Dar Yasin/Associated Press, 22 April 2016)

A closed limestone mine on Bel-ko Mountain near Belapatfalva, 158 kms northeast of Budapest, Hungary. Abandoned open-pit mines and quarries account for nearly ten thousand spots of landscape damage present in Hungary, according to reports based on topographic surveys. The environmental impacts of mining processes include contamination of soil, groundwater and surface water, as well as soil erosion, habitat loss and loss of biodiversity.: photo by Zsolt Czegled/EPA, 12 April 2016

Residents carry belongings they collected from their damaged homes as they walk during a return visit to the city of Palmyra, Syria: photo by Omar Sanadiki/Reuters, 14 April 2016



A Syrian man carries a carpet as he walks through a devastated part of the town of Palmyra as families load their belongings onto a bus in central Homs province, Syria: photo by Hassan Ammar/Associated Press, 14 April 2016



A general view shows Syrian families returning to the town of Palmyra: photo by Hassan Ammar/Associated Press, 14 April 2016

Women react to damage as they return to collect belongings in the city of Palmyra, Syria: photo by Omar Sanadiki/Reuters, 14 April 2016 


 
A Syrian boy waits his for family to load their belongings onto a bus in the town of Palmyra in central Homs province, Syria: photo by Hassan Ammar/Associated Press, 14 April 2016



Syrians inspect their homes upon their return to the modern town of Palmyra, adjacent to the ancient Syrian city: photo by Louai Beshara/AFP, 14 April 2016



Syrians look through a window after they loaded their belongings onto a bus in the town of Palmyra, Syria. Thousands of residents of this ancient town who fled Islamic State rule are returning briefly to check on their homes.: photo by Hassan Ammar/Associated Press, 14 April 2016
 

 A Syrian migrant family attempts to cross the border fence from Serbia into Hungary, near the village of Roszke: photo by Bernadett Szabo/Reuters, 28 August 2015

A Syrian migrant family attempts to cross the border fence from Serbia into Hungary, near the village of Roszke: photo by Bernadett Szabo/Reuters, 28 August 2015
 

A Syrian migrant family attempts to cross the border fence from Serbia into Hungary, near the village of Roszke: photo by Bernadett Szabo/Reuters, 28 August 2015



A Syrian migrant family attempts to cross the border fence from Serbia into Hungary, near the village of Roszke: photo by Bernadett Szabo/Reuters, 28 August 2015 

Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go

A flamingo and flamingo chicks are seen in a corral before being fitted with identity rings at dawn at a lagoon in the Fuente de Piedra natural reserve, in Fuente de Piedra, near Malaga, southern Spain: photo by Jon Nazca/Reuters, 8 August 2015

A green vine snake feeds on an Indian Forest Skink inside the Silent Valley national park in Kerala, India: photo by Abhishek N. Chinnappa/Reuters, 28 November 2015