Notes & Queries Archive
NOTE1851

Passage in Gray's Elegy

By ECHO.

I do not remember to have seen noted the evident Lucretian origin of the verse— "For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Nor busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share." Compare Lucretius, lib. 3. v. 907.: "At jam non domus accipiet te læta; neque uxor Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati Præripere, et tacitâ pectus dulcedine tangent."

Topics: Victorian Poetry, Classical Literature