How many a father have I seen,
⁠A sober man, among his boys,
⁠Whose youth was full of foolish noise,
Who wears his manhood hale and green;

And dare we to this fancy give
⁠That had the wild oat not been sown,
⁠The soil, left barren, scarce had grown
The grain by which a man may live?

Oh! if we held the doctrine sound
⁠For life outliving heats of youth,
⁠Yet who would preach it as a truth
To those that eddy round and round?

Hold thou the good: define it well:
⁠For fear divine philosophy
⁠Should push beyond her mark, and be
Procuress to the Lords of Hell.