Arts & Sciences
The Scholars
From The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
Bald heads forgetful of their sins,
Old, learned, respectable bald heads
Edit and annotate the lines
That young men, tossing on their beds,
Rhymed out in love's despair
To flatter beauty's ignorant ear.
They'll cough in the ink to the world's end;
Wear out the carpet with their shoes
Earning respect; have no strange friend;
If they have sinned nobody knows.
Lord, what would they say
Should their Catullus walk that way?
Codex Note
Bald, learned scholars edit and annotate the lines that young men once wrote in love's despair. The poem asks what they would say 'should their Catullus walk that way'.
Cite this poem
MLA
Yeats, W. B. “The Scholars.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/yeats/43/.
Chicago
Yeats, W. B. “The Scholars.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/yeats/43/.
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