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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.
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
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
