Hymn to the Penates

Yet one Song more! one high and solemn strainEre PAEAN! on thy temple's ruined wallI hang the silent harp: there may its strings,When the rude tempest shakes the aged pile,Make melancholy music. One Song more!5PENATES! hear me! for to you I hymnThe votive lay. Whether, as sages deem,Ye dwell in the inmost Heaven, the COUNSELLORSOf JOVE; or if, SUPREME OF DEITIES,All things are yours, and in your holy train10JOVE proudly ranks, and JUNO, white arm'd Queen.

And wisest of Immortals, aweful MaidATHENIAN PALLAS. Venerable Powers!Hearken your hymn of praise! tho' from your ritesEstranged, and exiled from your altars long,15I have not ceased to love you, HOUSEHOLD GODS!In many a long and melancholy hourOf solitude and sorrow, has my heartWith earnest longings prayed to rest at lengthBeside your hallowed hearth--for PEACE is there!20

Yes I have loved you long. I call on youYourselves to witness with what holy joy,Shunning the polished mob of human kind,I have retired to watch your lonely firesAnd commune with myself. Delightful hours25That gave mysterious pleasure, made me knowAll the recesses of my wayward heart,Taught me to cherish with devoutest careIts strange unworldly feelings, taught me tooThe best of lessons--to respect myself!30

Nor have I ever ceas'd to reverence youDOMESTIC DEITIES! from the first dawnOf reason, thro' the adventurous paths of youthEven to this better day, when on mine earThe uproar of contending nations sounds,35But like the passing wind--and wakes no pulseTo tumult. When a child--(for still I loveTo dwell with fondness on my childish years,Even as that Persian favorite would retireFrom the court's dangerous pageantry and pomp,40To gaze upon his shepherd garb, and weep,Rememb'ring humble happiness.) When firstA little one, I left my father's home,I can remember the first grief I felt,And the first painful smile that cloathed my front45With feelings not its own: sadly at nightI sat me down beside a stranger's hearth;And when the lingering hour of rest was come,First wet with tears my pillow. As I grewIn years and knowledge, and the course of Time50Developed the young feelings of my heart,When most I loved in solitude to roveAmid the woodland gloom; or where the rocksDarken'd old Avon's stream, in the ivied caveRecluse to sit and brood the future song,55Yet not the less, PENATES, loved I thenYour altars, not the less at evening hourDelighted by the well-trimm'd fire to sit,Absorbed in many a dear deceitful dreamOf visionary joys: deceitful dreams--60Not wholly vain--for painting purest joys,They form'd to Fancy's mould her votary's heart.

By Cherwell's sedgey side, and in the meadsWhere Isis in her calm clear stream reflectsThe willow's bending boughs, at earliest dawn65In the noon-tide hour, and when the night-mists rose,I have remembered you: and when the noiseOf loud intemperance on my lonely earBurst with loud tumult, as recluse I sat,Pondering on loftiest themes of man redeemed70From servitude, and vice, and wretchedness,I blest you, HOUSEHOLD GODS! because I lovedYour peaceful altars and serener rites.Nor did I cease to reverence you, when drivenAmid the jarring crowd, an unfit man75To mingle with the world; still, still my heartSighed for your sanctuary, and inly pined;And loathing human converse, I have strayedWhere o'er the sea-beach chilly howl'd the blast,And gaz'd upon the world of waves, and wished80That I were far beyond the Atlantic deep,In woodland haunts--a sojourner with PEACE.

Not idly fabled they the Bards inspired,Who peopled Earth with Deities. They trodThe wood with reverence where the DRYADS dwelt;85At day's dim dawn or evening's misty hourThey saw the OREADS on their mountain haunts.And felt their holy influence, nor impureOf thought--or ever with polluted handsTouched they without a prayer the NAIAD'S spring;90Yet was their influence transient; such brief aweInspiring as the thunder's long loud pealStrikes to the feeble spirit. HOUSEHOLD GODS,Not such your empire! in your votaries' breastsNo momentary impulse ye awake--95Nor fleeting like their local energies,The deep devotion that your fanes impart.O ye whom YOUTH has wilder'd on your way,Or VICE with fair-mask'd foulness, or the lureOf FAME that calls ye to her crowded paths100With FOLLY's rattle, to your HOUSEHOLD GODSReturn! for not in VICE's gay abodes,Not in the unquiet unsafe halls of FAMEDoes HAPPINESS abide! O ye who weepMuch for the many miseries of Mankind,105More for their vices, ye whose honest eyesFrown on OPPRESSION,--ye whose honest heartsBeat high when FREEDOM sounds her dread tocsin;--O ye who quit the path of peaceful lifeCrusading for mankind--a spaniel race110That lick the hand that beats them, or tear allAlike in frenzy--to your HOUSEHOLD GODSReturn, for by their altars VIRTUE dwellsAnd HAPPINESS with her; for by their firesTRANQUILLITY in no unsocial mood115Sits silent, listening to the pattering shower;For, so SUSPICION sleep not at the gateOf WISDOM,--FALSEHOOD shall not enter there.

As on the height of some huge eminence,Reach'd with long labour, the way-faring man120Pauses awhile, and gazing o'er the plainWith many a sore step travelled, turns him thenSerious to contemplate the onward road,And calls to mind the comforts of his home,And sighs that he has left them, and resolves125To stray no more: I on my way of lifeMuse thus PENATES, and with firmest faithDevote myself to you. I will not quitTo mingle with the mob your calm abodes,Where, by the evening hearth CONTENTMENT sits130And hears the cricket chirp; where LOVE delightsTo dwell, and on your altars lays his torchThat burns with no extinguishable flame.

Hear me ye POWERS benignant! there is oneMust be mine inmate--for I may not chuse135But love him. He is one whom many wrongsHave sicken'd of the world. There was a timeWhen he would weep to hear of wickednessAnd wonder at the tale; when for the opprestHe felt a brother's pity, to the oppressor140A good man's honest anger. His quick eyeBetray'd each rising feeling, every thoughtLeapt to his tongue. When first among mankindHe mingled, by himself he judged of them,And loved and trusted them, to Wisdom deaf,145And took them to his bosom. FALSEHOOD metHer unsuspecting victim, fair of front,And lovely as Apega's sculptured form,Like that false image caught his warm embraceAnd gored his open breast. The reptile race150Clung round his bosom, and with viper foldsEncircling, stung the fool who fostered them.His mother was SIMPLICITY, his sireBENEVOLENCE; in earlier days he boreHis father's name; the world who injured him155Call him MISANTHROPY. I may not chuseBut love him, HOUSEHOLD GODS! for we were nurstIn the same school.

PENATES! some there areWho say, that not in the inmost heaven ye dwell,160Gazing with eye remote on all the waysOf man, his GUARDIAN GODS; wiselier they deemA dearer interest to the human raceLinks you, yourselves the SPIRITS OF THE DEAD.No mortal eye may pierce the invisible world,165No light of human reason penetrateThat depth where Truth lies hid. Yet to this faithMy heart with instant sympathy assents;And I would judge all systems and all faithsBy that best touchstone, from whose test DECEIT170Shrinks like the Arch-Fiend at Ithuriel's spear,And SOPHISTRY'S gay glittering bubble bursts,As at the spousals of the Nereid's son,When that false Florimel, by her prototypeDisplay'd in rivalry, with all her charms175Dissolved away.

Nor can the halls of HeavenGive to the human soul such kindred joy,As hovering o'er its earthly haunts it feels,When with the breeze it wantons round the brow180Of one beloved on earth; or when at nightIn dreams it comes, and brings with it the DAYSAnd JOYS that are no more, Or when, perchanceWith power permitted to alleviate illAnd fit the sufferer for the coming woe,185Some strange presage the SPIRIT breathes, and fillsThe breast with ominous fear, and disciplinesFor sorrow, pours into the afflicted heartThe balm of resignation, and inspiresWith heavenly hope. Even as a Child delights190To visit day by day the favorite plantHis hand has sown, to mark its gradual growth,And watch all anxious for the promised flower;Thus to the blessed spirit, in innocenceAnd pure affections like a little child,195Sweet will it be to hover o'er the friendsBeloved; then sweetest if, as Duty prompts,With earthly care we in their breasts have sownThe seeds of Truth and Virtue, holy flowersWhose odour reacheth Heaven.200

When my sick Heart,(Sick with hope long delayed, than, which no carePresses the crush'd heart heavier from itselfSeeks the best comfort, often have I deemedThat thou didst witness every inmost thought205SEWARD! my dear dead friend! for not in vain,Oh early summon'd in thy heavenly course!Was thy brief sojourn here: me didst thou leaveWith strengthen'd step to follow the right pathTill we shall meet again. Meantime I soothe210The deep regret of Nature, with belief,My EDMUND! that thine eye's celestial kenPervades me now, marking no mean joyThe movements of the heart that loved thee well!

Such feelings Nature prompts, and hence your rites215DOMESTIC GODS! arose. When for his sonWith ceaseless grief Syrophanes bewail'd,Mourning his age left childless, and his wealthHeapt for an alien, he with fixed eyeStill on the imaged marble of the dead220Dwelt, pampering sorrow. Thither from his wrathA safe asylum, fled the offending slave,And garlanded the statue and imploredHis young lost Lord to save: Remembrance thenSoftened the father, and he loved to see225The votive wreath renewed, and the rich smokeCurl from the costly censer slow and sweet.From Egypt soon the sorrow-soothing ritesDivulging spread; before your idol formsBy every hearth the blinded Pagan knelt,230Pouring his prayers to these, and offering thereVain sacrifice or impious, and sometimesWith human blood your sanctuary defil'd:Till the first BRUTUS, tyrant-conquering chief,Arose; he first the impious rites put down,235He fitliest, who for FREEDOM lived and died,The friend of humankind. Then did your feastsFrequent recur and blameless; and when cameThe solemn festival, whose happiest ritesEmblem'd EQUALITY, the holiest truth!240Crown'd with gay garlands were your statues seen,To you the fragrant censer smok'd, to youThe rich libation flow'd: vain sacrifice!For nor the poppy wreath nor fruits nor wine.Ye ask, PENATES! nor the altar cleans'd245With many a mystic form; ye ask the heartMade pure, and by domestic Peace and LoveHallowed to you.

Hearken your hymn of praise,PENATES! to your shrines I come for rest,250There only to be found. Often at eve,Amid my wanderings I have seen far offThe lonely light that spake of comfort there,It told my heart of many a joy of home,And my poor heart was sad. When I have gazed255From some high eminence on goodly valesAnd cots and villages embower'd below,The thought would rise that all to me was strangeAmid the scene so fair, nor one small spotWhere my tir'd mind might rest and call it home,260There is a magic in that little word;It is a mystic circle that surroundsComforts and Virtues never known beyondThe hallowed limit. Often has my heartAched for that quiet haven; haven'd now,265I think of those in this world's wildernessWho wander on and find no home of restTill to the grave they go! them POVERTYHollow-eyed fiend, the child of WEALTH and POWER,Bad offspring of worse parents, aye afflicts,270Cankering with her foul mildews the chill'd heart--Them WANT with scorpion scourge drives to the denOf GUILT--them SLAUGHTER with the price of deathBuys for her raven brood. Oh not on themGOD OF ETERNAL JUSTICE! not on them275Let fall thy thunder!

HOUSEHOLD DEITIES!Then only shall be Happiness on earthWhen Man shall feel your sacred power, and loveYour tranquil joys; then shall the city stand280A huge void sepulchre, and rising fairAmid the ruins of the palace pileThe Olive grow, there shall the TREE OF PEACEStrike its roots deep and flourish. This the stateShall bless the race redeemed of Man, when WEALTH285And POWER and all their hideous progenyShall sink annihilate, and all mankindLive in the equal brotherhood of LOVE.Heart-calming hope and sure! for hitherwardTend all the tumults of the troubled world,290Its woes, its wisdom, and its wickednessAlike: so he hath will'd whose will is just.

Meantime, all hoping and expecting allIn patient faith, to you, DOMESTIC GODS!I come, studious of other lore than song,295Of my past years the solace and support:Yet shall my Heart remember the past yearsWith honest pride, trusting that not in vainLives the pure song of LIBERTY and TRUTH.