In Memoriam (Tennyson)/Canto 52

by Alfred Tennyson

lii.

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.