The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

‘Brief Lives’ ‘William Shakespeare’
He was a handsome, well-shaped man: very good company, and of a very ready and pleasant
smooth wit.
‘Brief Lives’ ‘William Shakespeare’
Anno 1670, not far from Cirencester, was an apparition; being demanded whether a good spirit
or a bad? returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume and most melodious twang.
Mr W. Lilly believes it was a fairy.
‘Miscellanies’ (1696) ‘Apparitions’
1.114 W. H. Auden (Wystan Hugh Auden) 1907-73
Some thirty inches from my nose
The frontier of my Person goes,
And all the untilled air between
Is private pagus or demesne.
Stranger, unless with bedroom eyes
I beckon you to fraternize,
Beware of rudely crossing it:
I have no gun, but I can spit.
‘About the House’ (1966) ‘Prologue: the Birth of Architecture’
Sob, heavy world,
Sob as you spin
Mantled in mist, remote from the happy.
‘The Age of Anxiety’ (1947) p. 104
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
‘Another Time’ (1940) no. 18, p. 43
I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street.
I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry