The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

‘Cypresses’ (1923)
Don’t be sucked in by the su-superior,
don’t swallow the culture bait,
don’t drink, don’t drink and get beerier and beerier,
do learn to discriminate.
‘Don’ts’ (1929)
Along the avenue of cypresses
All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices
Of linen go the chanting choristers,
The priests in gold and black, the villagers.
‘Giorno dei Morti’ (1917)
How beastly the bourgeois is
Especially the male of the species.
‘How Beastly the Bourgeois Is’ (1929)
For while we have sex in the mind, we truly have none in the body.
‘Leave Sex Alone’ (1929)
Men! The only animal in the world to fear!
‘Mountain Lion’ (1923)
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
‘Piano’ (1918)
I never saw a wild thing
Sorry for itself.
‘Self-Pity’ (1929)
Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
And the long journey towards oblivion...
Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.
‘Ship of Death’ (1932)
A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
‘Snake’ (1923)
And I thought of the albatross,
And I wished he would come back, my snake.
For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.