Hang your heads!

Here we are again. The place is buzzing with students, all here to do resit exams. I'd have thought there'd be an air of shame, but no, they're bright-eyed as always.

Here's an older view of shame, by Thomas Moore (1780-1852), though he wasn't writing about exam failure.

'Where Shall We Bury Our Shame?'

Where shall we bury our shame?

Where, in what desolate place,

Hide the last wreck of a name

Broken and stain'd by disgrace?

Death may dissever the chain,

Oppression will cease when we 're gone;

But the dishonour, the stain,

Die as we may, will live on.

Was it for this we sent out

Liberty's cry from our shore?

Was it for this that her shout

Thrill'd to the world's very core?

Thus to live cowards and slaves! -

Oh, ye free-hearts that lie dead,

Do you not, ev'n in your graves,

Shudder, as o'er you we tread?