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.