The Scholars / Yeats

"The Scholars" is a poem written by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. It is included in the 1919 collection The Wild Swans at Coole.

BALD heads forgetful of their sins,

Old, learned, respectable bald heads

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That young men, tossing on their beds,

Rhymed out in love’s despair

To flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.

All shuffle there; all cough in ink;

All wear the carpet with their shoes;

All think what other people think;

All know the man their neighbour knows.

Lord, what would they say

Did their Catullus walk that way?