THE SCHOLARS
by William Butler Yeats

"At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet."
Plato

Women, I tell you this in all honesty:
Never trust any young man who has never written
a love poem - no matter how bad it might have been.

Trust me in this!

Man and wife

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.
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?