Wisdom

While honouring the grape’s ruby nectar,
All sportingly, laughingly gay;
We determined--I, Silvia, and Hector,
To drive old dame Wisdom away.

“O my children, take care,” said the beldame,
“Attend to these counsels of mine:
Get not tipsy! for danger is seldom
Remote from the goblet of wine.”

“With thee in his company, no man
Can err,” said our wag with a wink;
“But come, thou good-natured old woman,
There’s a drop in the goblet--and drink!”

She frown’d--but her scruples soon twisting,
Consented:--and smilingly said:
“So polite--there’s indeed no resisting,
For Wisdom was never ill-bred.”

She drank, but continued her teaching:
“Let the wise from indulgence refrain;”
And never gave over her preaching,
But to say “Fill the goblet again.”

And she drank, and she totter’d, but still she
Was talking and shaking her head:
Mutter’d “temperance”--“prudence”--until she
Was carried by Folly to bed.