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Christopher Smart

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Then comes rosy health from her cottage of thatch,
Where never physician hath lifted the latch.

Christopher Smart (11 April 1722 – 21 May 1771), otherwise known as "Kit Smart", "Kitty Smart", and "Jack Smart", was an English poet.

Quotes

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  • Thus when a barber and collier fight,
    The barber beats the luckless collier—white;
    The dusty collier heaves his ponderous sack,
    And, big with vengeance, beats the barber—black.
    In comes the brick-dust man, with grime o’erspread,
    And beats the collier and the barber—red;
    Black, red, and white, in various clouds are toss’d,
    And in the dust they raise the combatants are lost.
    • "Soliloquy of the Princess Periwinkle" in A Trip to Cambridge, or the Grateful Fair, acted during the summer of 1747; printed in Campbell's Specimens of the British Poets, vol. 6 (London: John Murray, 1819) p. 185
  • Night with all her negro train,
    Took possession of the plain;
    In an hearse she rode reclin'd.
    Drawn by screech-owls slow and blind:
    Close to her, with printless feet,
    Crept Stillness in a winding sheet.
    • Ode XIV. A Night-Piece; or, Modern Philosophy (1748)
  • Behind him came Health from her cottage of thatch,
    Where never physician had lifted the latch.
    • "A Morning Piece" in The Student, vol. 1, no. 7 (30 July 1750) p. 274. Differently quoted in S. Austin Allibone (ed.) Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott & Co, 1876) p. 405:
      Then comes rosy health from her cottage of thatch,
      Where never physician hath lifted the latch.

Fables (1750–67)

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  • Well of all dogs it stands confess'd,
    Your English bull dogs are the best.
    • 2. The English Bull Dog, Dutch Mastiff, and Quail, l. 41
  • Too hard for any frog's digestion,
    To have his froghood call'd in question!
    • 6. The Duellists, l. 31
  • Ma'm, architecture you're not skill'd in,
    I don't approve your way of building;
    In this there's nothing like design,
    Pray learn the use of Gunter's line.
    • 10. The Blockhead and Beehive, l. 59
    • Gunter's line = the rule of proportion introduced by Edmund Gunter

Jubilate Agno (1759–63)

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  • For the flower glorifies God and the root parries the adversary.
    For the flowers have their angels even the words of God's Creation.
    • Fragment B, l. 499
  • For flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ.
    • Fragment B, l. 506
  • For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
    For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
    • Fragment B, l. 695
  • For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
    For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life
    For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
    For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
    • Fragment B, l. 721

A Song to David (1763)

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  • But stronger still, in earth and air,
    And in the sea, the man of pray'r;
       And far beneath the tide;
    And in the seat to faith assigned,
    Where ask is have, where seek is find,
       Where knock is open wide.
    • LXXVII
  • Glorious the sun in mid-career;
    Glorious th' assembled fires appear.
    • LXXXIV
  • Glorious the northern lights astream;
    Glorious the song, when God's the theme;
       Glorious the thunder's roar:
    Glorious hosanna from the den;
    Glorious the catholic amen;
       Glorious the martyr's gore.
    • LXXXV

About Smart

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  • Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart showed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question.
  • Song, where flute-breath silvers trumpet clang,
    And stations you for once on either hand
    With Milton and with Keats
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