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.