"In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire
With tears of artless innocence! Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home.
Winter, 311.
But this is a less pointed imitation than that of Gray, which succeeded it. Gray had his eye on Lucretius:
"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,