Elizabeth Smart

Elizabeth Smart (1913-1986) was born in Ottawa, Canada and educated in private schools in Canada and for a year at King's College, London. Her love affair with the poet George Barker was the inspiration for one of the most poetic and touching chronicles of a love affair that Smart is probably best known for, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept. Elizabeth Smart lived in England after WWII and was for a time, literary and associate editor of Queen magazine.

Elizabeth Smart only wrote a slim volume of poetry in her lifetime. Because of the paucity of internet sites dedicated to this remarkable poet, I have made the effort to include a large-ish collection of her poems.

By Grand Central Station, I sat down and wept:
I will not be placated by the mechanical motions of existence, nor find consolation in the solicitude of waiters who notice my devastated face. Sleep tries to seduce me by promising a more reasonable tomorrow. But I will not be betrayed by such a Judas of fallacy: it betrays everyone: it leads them into death. Everyone acquiesces, everyone compromises.
They say, As we grow older, we embrace resignation. But O, they totter into it blind and uncompromising. And from their sin, the sin of accepting such a pimp to death, there is no redemption. It is the sin of damnation.