The Dawn

I would be ignorant as the dawn

That has looked down

On that old queen measuring a town,

With the pin of a brooch,

Or the withered men that saw

From their pedantic Babylon

The careless planets in their courses,

The stars fade out where the moon comes,

And took their tablets and did sums;

I would be ignorant as the dawn

That merely stood, rocking the glittering coach

Above the cloudy shoulders of the horses;

I would be -- for no knowledge is worth a straw --

Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) The Wild Swans at Coole, 1919