"The Scholars" is a poem written by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. It was written between 1914 and April 1915, and is included in the 1919 collection The Wild Swans at Coole.
<blockquote> Bald heads forgetful of their sins,<br /> Old, learned, respectable bald heads<br /> Edit and annotate the lines<br /> That young men, tossing on their beds,<br /> Rhymed out in love's despair<br /> To flatter beauty's ignorant ear.<br />
They'll cough in the ink to the world's end;<br /> Wear out the carpet with their shoes<br /> Earning respect; have no strange friend;<br /> If they have sinned nobody knows.<br /> Lord, what would they say<br /> Did their Catullus walk that way? </blockquote>