Hymn To The Penates.

Remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.

The words of Agur.

The Title of the following Poem will probably remind the Reader of Akenside's Hymn to the Naiads, but the manner in which I have treated the subject fortunately precludes comparison.

HYMN to the PENATES.

Yet one Song more! one high and solemn strain

Ere PAEAN! on thy temple's ruined wall

I hang the silent harp: there may its strings,

When the rude tempest shakes the aged pile,

Make melancholy music. One Song more!

PENATES! hear me! for to you I hymn

The votive lay. Whether, as sages deem,

Ye dwell in the [1]inmost Heaven, the [2]COUNSELLORS

Of JOVE; or if, SUPREME OF DEITIES,

All things are yours, and in your holy train

JOVE proudly ranks, and JUNO, white arm'd Queen.

And wisest of Immortals, aweful Maid

ATHENIAN PALLAS. Venerable Powers!

Hearken your hymn of praise! tho' from your rites

Estranged, and exiled from your altars long,

I have not ceased to love you, HOUSEHOLD GODS!

In many a long and melancholy hour

Of solitude and sorrow, has my heart

With earnest longings prayed to rest at length

Beside your hallowed hearth--for PEACE is there!

Yes I have loved you long. I call on you

Yourselves to witness with what holy joy,

Shunning the polished mob of human kind,

I have retired to watch your lonely fires

And commune with myself. Delightful hours

That gave mysterious pleasure, made me know

All the recesses of my wayward heart,

Taught me to cherish with devoutest care

Its strange unworldly feelings, taught me too

The best of lessons--to respect myself!

Nor have I ever ceas'd to reverence you

DOMESTIC DEITIES! from the first dawn

Of reason, thro' the adventurous paths of youth

Even to this better day, when on mine ear

The uproar of contending nations sounds,

But like the passing wind--and wakes no pulse

To tumult. When a child--(for still I love

To dwell with fondness on my childish years,

Even as that Persian favorite would retire

From the court's dangerous pageantry and pomp,

To gaze upon his shepherd garb, and weep,

Rememb'ring humble happiness.) When first

A little one, I left my father's home,

I can remember the first grief I felt,

And the first painful smile that cloathed my front

With feelings not its own: sadly at night

I 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 grew

In years and knowledge, and the course of Time

Developed the young feelings of my heart,

When most I loved in solitude to rove

Amid the woodland gloom; or where the rocks

Darken'd old Avon's stream, in the ivied cave

Recluse to sit and brood the future song,

Yet not the less, PENATES, loved I then

Your altars, not the less at evening hour

Delighted by the well-trimm'd fire to sit,

Absorbed in many a dear deceitful dream

Of visionary joys: deceitful dreams--

Not 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 meads

Where Isis in her calm clear stream reflects

The willow's bending boughs, at earliest dawn

In the noon-tide hour, and when the night-mists rose,

I have remembered you: and when the noise

Of loud intemperance on my lonely ear

Burst with loud tumult, as recluse I sat,

Pondering on loftiest themes of man redeemed

From servitude, and vice, and wretchedness,

I blest you, HOUSEHOLD GODS! because I loved

Your peaceful altars and serener rites.

Nor did I cease to reverence you, when driven

Amid the jarring crowd, an unfit man

To mingle with the world; still, still my heart

Sighed for your sanctuary, and inly pined;

And loathing human converse, I have strayed

Where o'er the sea-beach chilly howl'd the blast,

And gaz'd upon the world of waves, and wished

That 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 trod

The wood with reverence where the DRYADS dwelt;

At day's dim dawn or evening's misty hour

They saw the OREADS on their mountain haunts.

And felt their holy influence, nor impure

Of thought--or ever with polluted hands

Touched they without a prayer the NAIAD'S spring;

Yet was their influence transient; such brief awe

Inspiring as the thunder's long loud peal

Strikes to the feeble spirit. HOUSEHOLD GODS,

Not such your empire! in your votaries' breasts

No momentary impulse ye awake--

Nor 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 lure

Of FAME that calls ye to her crowded paths

With FOLLY's rattle, to your HOUSEHOLD GODS

Return! for not in VICE's gay abodes,

Not in the unquiet unsafe halls of FAME

Does HAPPINESS abide! O ye who weep

Much for the many miseries of Mankind,

More for their vices, ye whose honest eyes

Frown on OPPRESSION,--ye whose honest hearts

Beat high when FREEDOM sounds her dread tocsin;--

O ye who quit the path of peaceful life

Crusading for mankind--a spaniel race

That lick the hand that beats them, or tear all

Alike in frenzy--to your HOUSEHOLD GODS

Return, for by their altars VIRTUE dwells

And HAPPINESS with her; for by their fires

TRANQUILLITY in no unsocial mood

Sits silent, listening to the pattering shower;

For, so [3]SUSPICION sleep not at the gate

Of WISDOM,--FALSEHOOD shall not enter there.

As on the height of some huge eminence,

Reach'd with long labour, the way-faring man

Pauses awhile, and gazing o'er the plain

With many a sore step travelled, turns him then

Serious to contemplate the onward road,

And calls to mind the comforts of his home,

And sighs that he has left them, and resolves

To stray no more: I on my way of life

Muse thus PENATES, and with firmest faith

Devote myself to you. I will not quit

To mingle with the mob your calm abodes,

Where, by the evening hearth CONTENTMENT sits

And hears the cricket chirp; where LOVE delights

To dwell, and on your altars lays his torch

That burns with no extinguishable flame.

Hear me ye POWERS benignant! there is one

Must be mine inmate--for I may not chuse

But love him. He is one whom many wrongs

Have sicken'd of the world. There was a time

When he would weep to hear of wickedness

And wonder at the tale; when for the opprest

He felt a brother's pity, to the oppressor

A good man's honest anger. His quick eye

Betray'd each rising feeling, every thought

Leapt to his tongue. When first among mankind

He mingled, by himself he judged of them,

And loved and trusted them, to Wisdom deaf,

And took them to his bosom. FALSEHOOD met

Her unsuspecting victim, fair of front,

And lovely as [4]Apega's sculptured form,

Like that false image caught his warm embrace

And gored his open breast. The reptile race

Clung round his bosom, and with viper folds

Encircling, stung the fool who fostered them.

His mother was SIMPLICITY, his sire

BENEVOLENCE; in earlier days he bore

His father's name; the world who injured him

Call him MISANTHROPY. I may not chuse

But love him, HOUSEHOLD GODS! for we were nurst

In the same school.

PENATES! some there are

Who say, that not in the inmost heaven ye dwell,

Gazing with eye remote on all the ways

Of man, his GUARDIAN GODS; wiselier they deem

A dearer interest to the human race

Links you, yourselves the SPIRITS OF THE DEAD.

No mortal eye may pierce the invisible world,

No light of human reason penetrate

That depth where Truth lies hid. Yet to this faith

My heart with instant sympathy assents;

And I would judge all systems and all faiths

By that best touchstone, from whose test DECEIT

Shrinks 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 [5] Florimel, by her prototype

Display'd in rivalry, with all her charms

Dissolved away.

Nor can the halls of Heaven

Give to the human soul such kindred joy,

As hovering o'er its earthly haunts it feels,

When with the breeze it wantons round the brow

Of one beloved on earth; or when at night

In dreams it comes, and brings with it the DAYS

And JOYS that are no more, Or when, perchance

With power permitted to alleviate ill

And fit the sufferer for the coming woe,

Some strange presage the SPIRIT breathes, and fills

The breast with ominous fear, and disciplines

For sorrow, pours into the afflicted heart

The balm of resignation, and inspires

With heavenly hope. Even as a Child delights

To visit day by day the favorite plant

His hand has sown, to mark its gradual growth,

And watch all anxious for the promised flower;

Thus to the blessed spirit, in innocence

And pure affections like a little child,

Sweet will it be to hover o'er the friends

Beloved; then sweetest if, as Duty prompts,

With earthly care we in their breasts have sown

The seeds of Truth and Virtue, holy flowers

Whose odour reacheth Heaven.

When my sick Heart,

(Sick [6] with hope long delayed, than, which no care

Presses the crush'd heart heavier;) from itself

Seeks the best comfort, often have I deemed

That thou didst witness every inmost thought

SEWARD! my dear dead friend! for not in vain,

Oh early summon'd in thy heavenly course!

Was thy brief sojourn here: me didst thou leave

With strengthen'd step to follow the right path

Till we shall meet again. Meantime I soothe

The deep regret of Nature, with belief,

My EDMUND! that thine eye's celestial ken

Pervades me now, marking no mean joy

The movements of the heart that loved thee well!

Such feelings Nature prompts, and hence your rites

DOMESTIC GODS! arose. When for his son

With ceaseless grief Syrophanes bewail'd,

Mourning his age left childless, and his wealth

Heapt for an alien, he with fixed eye

Still on the imaged marble of the dead

Dwelt, pampering sorrow. Thither from his wrath

A safe asylum, fled the offending slave,

And garlanded the statue and implored

His young lost Lord to save: Remembrance then

Softened the father, and he loved to see

The votive wreath renewed, and the rich smoke

Curl from the costly censer slow and sweet.

From Egypt soon the sorrow-soothing rites

Divulging spread; before your [7] idol forms

By every hearth the blinded Pagan knelt,

Pouring his prayers to these, and offering there

Vain sacrifice or impious, and sometimes

With human blood your sanctuary defil'd:

Till the first BRUTUS, tyrant-conquering chief,

Arose; he first the impious rites put down,

He fitliest, who for FREEDOM lived and died,

The friend of humankind. Then did your feasts

Frequent recur and blameless; and when came

The solemn [8] festival, whose happiest rites

Emblem'd EQUALITY, the holiest truth!

Crown'd with gay garlands were your statues seen,

To you the fragrant censer smok'd, to you

The rich libation flow'd: vain sacrifice!

For nor the poppy wreath nor fruits nor wine.

Ye ask, PENATES! nor the altar cleans'd

With many a mystic form; ye ask the heart

Made pure, and by domestic Peace and Love

Hallowed to you.

Hearken your hymn of praise,

PENATES! to your shrines I come for rest,

There only to be found. Often at eve,

Amid my wanderings I have seen far off

The 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 gazed

From some high eminence on goodly vales

And cots and villages embower'd below,

The thought would rise that all to me was strange

Amid the scene so fair, nor one small spot

Where my tir'd mind might rest and call it home,

There is a magic in that little word;

It is a mystic circle that surrounds

Comforts and Virtues never known beyond

The hallowed limit. Often has my heart

Ached for that quiet haven; haven'd now,

I think of those in this world's wilderness

Who wander on and find no home of rest

Till to the grave they go! them POVERTY

Hollow-eyed fiend, the child of WEALTH and POWER,

Bad offspring of worse parents, aye afflicts,

Cankering with her foul mildews the chill'd heart--

Them WANT with scorpion scourge drives to the den

Of GUILT--them SLAUGHTER with the price of death

Buys for her raven brood. Oh not on them

GOD OF ETERNAL JUSTICE! not on them

Let fall thy thunder!

HOUSEHOLD DEITIES!

Then only shall be Happiness on earth

When Man shall feel your sacred power, and love

Your tranquil joys; then shall the city stand

A huge void sepulchre, and rising fair

Amid the ruins of the palace pile

The Olive grow, there shall the TREE OF PEACE

Strike its roots deep and flourish. This the state

Shall bless the race redeemed of Man, when WEALTH

And POWER and all their hideous progeny

Shall sink annihilate, and all mankind

Live in the equal brotherhood of LOVE.

Heart-calming hope and sure! for hitherward

Tend all the tumults of the troubled world,

Its woes, its wisdom, and its wickedness

Alike: so he hath will'd whose will is just.

Meantime, all hoping and expecting all

In patient faith, to you, DOMESTIC GODS!

I come, studious of other lore than song,

Of my past years the solace and support:

Yet shall my Heart remember the past years

With honest pride, trusting that not in vain

Lives the pure song of LIBERTY and TRUTH.