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 doctrine give That had the wild oat not been sown, The soil, left barren, had not 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.