The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

my ears yielding like swinging doors
admit princes to the corridors
into the mind, do not envy me.
I have a beast on my back.
‘Bête Noire’ (1944)
And all my endeavours are unlucky explorers
come back, abandoning the expedition;
the specimens, the lilies of ambition
still spring in their climate, still unpicked:
but time, time is all I lacked
to find them, as the great collectors before me.
‘On Return from Egypt, 1943-4’ (1946)
Remember me when I am dead
And simplify me when I’m dead.
‘Simplify me when I’m Dead’ (1941)
But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.
For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death, who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.
‘Vergissmeinnicht, 1943’
4.79 Norman Douglas 1868-1952
To find a friend one must close one eye. To keep him—two.
‘Almanac’ (1941) p. 77
Many a man who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened a tavern for his
friends.
‘South Wind’ (1917) ch. 20
4.80 Sir Alec Douglas-Home 1903—
See Lord Home (8.125)
4.81 Lorenzo Dow 1777-1834
You will be damned if you do—And you will be damned if you don’t.
‘Reflections on the Love of God’ (1836) ch. 6 (on ‘the doctrine of Particular Election’)
4.82 Ernest Dowson 1867-1900