The Full Text of “Away, Melancholy”
The Full Text of “Away, Melancholy”
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“Away, Melancholy” Introduction
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"Away, Melancholy" is English poet Stevie Smith's song of sorrow and hope. The poem's speaker, hoping to banish their "melancholy," reflects that while the world might sometimes seem unbelievably terrible, it's also miraculous. And that, the speaker argues, is because humanity manages to have faith in love and goodness in spite of life's pains. Smith first published this poem in her famous 1957 collection Not Waving But Drowning.
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“Away, Melancholy” Summary
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The speaker tries to cast their deep sadness away, telling themselves to let it go (all through the poem, they'll repeat this refrain).
Looking for consolation, the speaker reflects that the world keeps going on: trees and the earth are green, the wind blows, fire jumps up and rivers run. The speaker repeats their refrain, telling their sadness to go away.
The ant busily looks for food, and just like all the other animals, it lives its life either eating or being eaten. The speaker again tells their sadness to go away.
Humanity, the speaker goes on, also bustles around like an ant, eating, reproducing, and dying; humans are animals too. The speaker again tells themselves to let their sadness go.
Of all animals, the speaker says, humanity is the best. (In an aside, the speaker tells their sadness to go away.) Humans are the only animals that set up a sacred stone, pour all their own goodness into it, and call it God.
Therefore, the speaker says, don't even talk about cruelty, disease, and war; don't bother asking whether the image people call God can possibly be good and loving.
Instead, reflect that it's astonishing that people go on believing in the ideal of goodness that they call God. The speaker tells themselves to let their sadness go.
Humanity, the speaker says, tries to be good, and sighs longingly for love.
Battered, beaten down, dying in a pool of blood, humanity still looks to the heavens and cries out, "Love!" This is astonishing, the speaker says: humanity's goodness is what's incomprehensible, not humanity's failings.
One last time, the speaker cries: go away, melancholy. Let it go.
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“Away, Melancholy” Themes
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Despair and Hope
"Away, Melancholy" depicts the struggle to find hope and beauty in an often terrible world. Trying to banish their "melancholy" (or heavy, persistent sorrow), the poem's speaker takes comfort in the thought that, even in the worst circumstances, humanity somehow manages to believe in the ideals of goodness and love. Rather than asking why the world is so awful, the speaker concludes, people should marvel at the fact that humanity’s faith in "virtue" and "love" persists in spite of it all.
The poem's speaker suffers from a dreadful melancholy, a sorrow that seems to permeate the whole world. Doing their best to cast this sadness away, they try to cheer up by looking out at nature: "Are not the trees green / The earth as green? Does not the wind blow […]?" In other words: Doesn't nature keep on going no matter what, and isn't that beautiful?
But in this speaker's painful state, these traditional consolations aren't enough. Sure, nature's eternal cycles might be beautiful, but they also remind the speaker that "All things hurry / To be eaten or eat." In other words, life is just a meaningless struggle for survival, in which people and "ant[s]" alike bustle around "eat[ing]" and "coupl[ing]" (or having sex) until it's time for them to be "bur[ied]." This speaker is clearly so deep in their sadness that even the idea that the world goes on in spite of their sadness can't do them much good.
This grim predicament, however, lets hope in the back door. It's easy to feel that life is nasty, brutish, and short, the speaker reflects, but somehow, people still manage to find meaning, and that in itself is miraculous. Even in a world full of "tyranny," "pox" (or disease), and "wars," people believe in goodness—so much so that they learn to call their ideal of goodness "God" and worship it. It's "enough," the speaker says, to know that people go on believing in the love and goodness they call God even when they're "beaten, corrupted, dying." This capacity for belief in the face of horror is so beautiful and astonishing that the mere thought of it should itself give people hope.
Alas, melancholy can't be banished so easily. The poem's constant refrain of "Away, melancholy" suggests that the speaker needs to push their sadness back over and over; marveling at humanity's persistent belief in the good isn't a cure-all. But then, that's exactly the poem’s point. Reaching out for hope and love even in the depths of "melancholy," trying to "let it go," the speaker practices what they preach, making just the leap of faith the poem describes. Hope, this poem suggests, doesn't mean pretending the world’s sorrows don't exist or don't matter, but confronting them—and believing in goodness anyway.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-48
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Humanity vs. Nature
Humanity, this poem suggests, is both part of nature and separate from it, and that paradox is what makes people special, wonderful, and awe-inspiring.
This poem's "melancholy" (or deeply sorrowful) speaker reflects that human beings and animals are basically the same: they live out their little lives waiting either "to be eaten or eat." There's no difference in the way that a human being and an animal "eats, couples, buries" (eats, reproduces, and dies, that is). People are subject to just the same urges and cycles as the rest of nature—and their lives, in this way, aren’t any more meaningful than an ant's.
However, there's a clear difference between animals and human beings, too: the ability to reflect on this predicament and get "melancholy" about it in the first place! In fact, the speaker's melancholy sits right next to what they feel makes humanity "superlative" (or superior, best of all): the ability to imagine and aspire to something better, richer, and more meaningful than eat-or-be-eaten brutality. Humanity, the speaker observes with wonder, is the only animal that could come up with the concept of "goodness," let alone believe in it.
Being human, in this poem, thus means being at once an animal and something more than an animal. Self-awareness and the capacity to reflect are what make people "melancholy" (who ever saw a melancholy ant?) and what makes them "superlative," miraculous creatures.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 8-27
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Away, Melancholy”
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Lines 1-7
Away, melancholy, ...
... Away melancholy."Away, Melancholy" begins by painting a portrait of its speaker's sadness:
Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.This speaker, readers gather, must have been struggling with melancholy—a profound, enduring sadness, even a depression—for a long time. They're ready to be done with it now. But melancholy can't be turfed out so easily as all that. Even the speaker's anaphora on the word "away" makes it clear that this sorrow is hard to budge: one "away" won't do it.
For that matter, the speaker isn't just pushing melancholy away, but telling themselves to "let it go," words that suggest the speaker may find melancholy as hard to resist as it is to endure. The world, after all, is full of things to despair about.
Written in flexible free verse (with no set rhyme scheme or meter), the poem will shift its shape just as the speaker's thoughts do. Within this ever-changing shape, the words of the first stanza will become a refrain: the poem's backbone and its reason for being.
The speaker begins the second stanza of their quest to escape melancholy by doing what poets have often done: turning to the natural world for comfort. After all:
Are not the trees green,
The earth as green?The speaker's diacope on the word "green" paints a picture of a lush landscape, verdant as far as the eye can see. In the face of such loveliness, the speaker's rhetorical question seems to ask, who could despair? For that matter, as long as "the wind blow[s], / Fire leap[s] and the rivers flow," who could doubt that the world's beauty and the cycles of nature are bigger and more enduring than any one person's sadness?
The cry of "Away, melancholy" that ends the stanza seems to say, That ought to do it. But as the next stanza will show, this particular speaker's melancholy doesn't surrender to natural beauty as readily as, say, Mary Oliver's does.
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Lines 8-12
The ant is ...
... Away, melancholy. -
Lines 13-17
Man, too, hurries, ...
... let it go. -
Lines 18-27
Man of all ...
... let it go. -
Lines 28-36
Speak not to ...
... let it go. -
Lines 37-46
Man aspires ...
... Not his failing. -
Lines 47-48
Away, melancholy, ...
... let it go.
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“Away, Melancholy” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Refrain
The poem's poignant refrain shows the speaker grappling with suffering and finding the courage to embrace life in a painful world.
The refrain first appears in the poem's two opening lines:
Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.Here, at the outset of the poem, readers get the sense that the speaker is tired to death of being so "melancholy," but also that they might feel as if it's difficult to "let it go." To this speaker, it seems, melancholy might feel like both a burden and a crutch.
Every time these words (or a variation on them) appear through the rest of the poem—and they do so in nearly every stanza—their meaning evolves a little bit:
- In the second stanza, for instance, the words "Away, melancholy" appears after a series of comforting ideas about how the beauties of the natural world just keep rolling on regardless of one's feelings: the "rivers flow" and "fire leaps" anyway. When these lines conclude with an "Away, melancholy," it sounds as if the speaker is saying: Life goes on; therefore, go away, melancholy.
- But in the third stanza, the speaker has some gloomier thoughts about natural cycles, reflecting that "All things hurry / To be eaten or eat"—that it's a dog-eat-dog world for every living thing, in other words. When those thoughts conclude with an "Away, melancholy," it feels more as if the speaker is saying: Oh no, I've gone and made it worse—go away, melancholy!
As the poem goes on and the speaker begins to develop the idea that the human capacity even to imagine goodness might be cause for hope, the refrain starts to sound defiant, like a battle cry. By the time the poem ends with exactly the same words it began with, the speaker has a real reason to let go of their melancholy: if nothing else, the speaker can find hope in the idea that people believe in good even in the worst of times.
All those repetitions, though, might also suggest that hanging on to such hope is no easy task.
Where refrain appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2: “Away, melancholy, / Away with it, let it go.”
- Line 7: “Away melancholy.”
- Line 12: “Away, melancholy.”
- Lines 16-17: “With a hey ho melancholy, / Away with it, let it go.”
- Line 20: “(Away melancholy)”
- Line 23: “(Away melancholy)”
- Line 27: “Away melancholy, let it go.”
- Line 36: “Away, melancholy, let it go.”
- Lines 47-48: “Away, melancholy, / Away with it, let it go.”
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Repetition
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Rhetorical Question
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Asyndeton
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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"Away, Melancholy" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Melancholy
- Carrieth his meat
- Couples
- Superlative
- Pox
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(Location in poem: Line 1: “Away, melancholy,”; Line 7: “Away melancholy.”; Line 12: “Away, melancholy.”; Line 16: “With a hey ho melancholy,”; Line 20: “(Away melancholy)”; Line 23: “(Away melancholy)”; Line 27: “Away melancholy, let it go.”; Line 36: “Away, melancholy, let it go.”; Line 47: “Away, melancholy,”)
The "melancholy" the speaker sings of isn't any old sadness, but a deep, enduring, fundamental sorrow.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Away, Melancholy”
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Form
"Away, Melancholy" is written in free verse, without meter, a predictable stanza length, or a regular rhyme scheme. The short lines of its 10 irregular stanzas can sound weary, forceful, or full of hard-earned conviction. Moments of heightened, biblical language ("He carrieth his meat," "He of all creatures alone / Raiseth a stone") suggest that the speaker is delivering great and solemn truths.
Maybe the most distinctive formal choice here is the refrain introduced in the first stanza:
Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.These words, sometimes slightly changed or recombined, reappear all through the poem. As the speaker returns and returns to the refrain, its words begin to sound like a spell for banishing sadness—a spell that, judging by the speaker's repetitions, isn't as quick or as effective as one might hope.
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Meter
This poem is written in free verse, so it doesn't use a consistent meter. While no two stanzas use the same metrical patterns, there's still plenty of powerful rhythm here.
For instance, listen to the strong beat in this summation of the eat-or-be-eaten world:
The ant is busy
He carrieth his meat,
All things hurry
To be eaten or eat.These lines, with their two stresses apiece, are in dimeter—a thumping rhythm like a drumbeat or a pounding heart, just the thing for a description of life's relentlessness.
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Rhyme Scheme
While there's no steady rhyme scheme here, the poem is full of rhyme: end rhymes, internal rhymes, slant rhymes. All that music reflects the melancholy speaker's effort to see the beauty in an often sad and ugly world.
Listen, for instance, to the series of couplets in the poem's stark ninth stanza:
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.The first four lines here are written in rhymed couplets: dying and lying, above and love. The last two lines are a couplet too, in a sense, but their rhyme is slant: explaining and failing. This movement from perfect to slant rhymes evokes the speaker's wonder and pain at humanity's nigh-miraculous capacity to keep believing in goodness: that last rhyme, breaking from perfection, sounds broken itself, like a sob.
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“Away, Melancholy” Speaker
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As the poem's title suggests, this speaker is a melancholic soul: a person who suffers from deep sadness and sees the world with an inspired, philosophical eye. (These qualities have long been thought to travel together.) Their constant refrain— "Away, melancholy"—suggests just how weary they are of their sorrow and how ready they feel to "let it go."
Perhaps, though, their melancholy has also given them gifts. It's through being so very sad about the way the world works, the poem suggests, that people can also understand what makes human life special and miraculous: being sad about the world means being able to imagine a higher "good," and even to personify it as a loving "God."
Though the speaker never says much about themselves directly, then, the reader gets a clear picture of a person whose capacity for hope and despair aren't just equal, but intertwined.
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“Away, Melancholy” Setting
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The setting of "Away, Melancholy" is the whole sad and beautiful world. Trying hard to let their melancholy go, the speaker casts an eye over everything there is, looking for comfort in the fact that the "wind blow[s], / Fire leap[s] and the rivers flow." The world might be full of "tyranny" and "wars," the speaker reflects, but it's also a place where people continue to believe in goodness and love in spite of their pain. Taking this broad view, the speaker concludes that the best answer to melancholy is to remember that continued human "virtue" in the face of the world's constant and terrible pain is practically miraculous.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Away, Melancholy”
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Literary Context
Stevie Smith (1902-1971) was a British poet and novelist whose art mingled the light and the dark. Many of her poems unite bleak subject matter with a breezy tone. Her most famous poem, "Not Waving But Drowning," is a prime example (and gave its name to the 1957 book in which this poem was first collected). "Away, Melancholy" itself is a quintessential Smith poem, taking on the most desperate of questions in deceptively simple language.
Readers might trace Smith's artistic lineage back to Victorian poet Edward Lear. Like Lear, Smith wrote and illustrated melancholy poetry in the guise of light verse; like Lear, Smith suffered from persistent depressions. Both poets were odd ducks, a little out of step with the world around them, and both found inspiration and sorrow in that oddity. Critic David Smith once remarked that Smith's work was "so completely different from anyone else’s that it is all but impossible to discuss her poems in relation to those of her contemporaries." By her own description, she was far more deeply influenced by Victorian poets like Tennyson and Robert Browning than by living writers.
It was only toward the end of her life that Smith's genius was more widely recognized. By the time she died in 1971, she had been awarded both the Cholmondeley Award for Poetry and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. More telling than any kind of public honor, though, is her anonymous afterlife in the English language. Some of her lines—"not waving but drowning" perhaps most notably—are so famous that they've floated free of her work and become proverbial.
Historical Context
"Away, Melancholy" deals with universal concerns, but it's also clearly autobiographical. Stevie Smith suffered from serious depressions all her life; many of her poems deal with her emotional struggles and the wisdom she found in them. Smith's specific use of the word "melancholy" in this poem, in fact, might point readers toward the history of the idea that sorrow, wisdom, and creativity travel together.
Melancholy was once not just a mood, but a temperament. For centuries, people believed that the human body was governed by four fluids: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. These fluids were supposed to stay in balance; when they didn't, the theory ran, you ended up with all sorts of physical and emotional ailments. People with an excess of black bile were said to be "melancholic": gloomy and despairing.
However, this temperamental imbalance came with its compensations. Melancholic illnesses were said to disproportionately affect artists, philosophers, and other creative types, and were sometimes even associated with genius (though a serious fit of melancholy, as the great engraver Albrecht Dürer knew, could feel more paralyzing than inspiring). In Renaissance Europe, melancholy even became fashionable.
In linking a fit of melancholy with a creative vision of human goodness, Smith thus draws on the old wisdom that sorrow can inspire and educate, not just oppress.
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More “Away, Melancholy” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of the poem.
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A Brief Biography — Learn more about Stevie Smith's life and work at the Poetry Foundation.
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Smith's Influence — Read an appreciation of Smith's poetry that praises her knack for "uneasy verse."
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Smith on Melancholy — Listen to Smith discussing how sadness and struggle inspired her poetry.
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Smith's Legacy — Read a 2021 article honoring the 50th anniversary of Smith's death.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Stevie Smith
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