Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire’s return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Gray: Elegy.
Evidently the poet Gray had in his mind’s eye the following passage from Lucretius:
“Non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor
Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
Præripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent.”
[No joyous home shall receive thee, nor excellent wife, nor will any dear children of thine run out to meet thee and vie with each other in snatching kisses from thee, and raise a tumult of sweet but unutterable affection in thy breast.]
