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 their way?

My thanks to Tom Richards for suggesting today’s poem:

In “Letter From Lesbia” (Minstrels Poem #1467), Dorothy Parker pokes gentle fun at the self-absorption of the poet. But if a poet is self-absorbed and (hence) uninteresting, what does that make the critic who spends his days analyzing his poems?

— Thomas

PS. Tom writes that he found this poem in “Poem for the Day: 366 poems, old and new, worth learning by heart”, ed. Nicholas Albery; he further comments that “it’s only trumped by The Rattle Bag out of the poetry anthologies I’ve read”. With that strong a recommendation I’ll definitely have to keep an eye out for it; thanks again, Tom!

Minstrels Links

The Catullus theme:
Poem #1463, Song Five – Gaius Valerius Catullus
Poem #1464, From Catullus 5 – Sir Walter Raleigh
Poem #1465, Come, My Celia – Ben Jonson
Poem #1466, My Sweetest Lesbia – Thomas Campion
Poem #1467, From A Letter From Lesbia – Dorothy Parker

Administrivia

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