"But thy cheerful home shall no more receive thee, nor thy excellent
wife; nor shall thy sweet children run to snatch kisses from thee, and
touch thy breast with secret delight."
In whose steps Virgil treads:
"Interea _dulces pendent circum oscula nati_;
Casta pudicitiam servat domus."--_Geo._ II. 523.
"His cares are eased with intervals of bliss;
His little children climbing for a kiss,
Welcome their father's late return at night;
His faithful bed is crown'd with chaste delight."
Dryden.
(Virgil liked the expression _dulces nati_. He has
"Nec mihi jam patriam antiquam spes ulla videndi,
Nec _dulces natos_ exoptatumque parentem."
_Æn._ II. 137.
"Nec _dulces natos_, Veneris nec præmia nôris?"
_Æn._ IV. 33.
"Sed tota in _dulces_ consument ubera _natos_."
_Geo._ III. 178.)
Statius, doubtless, had both Lucretius and Virgil in his view, when he
wrote,
"Rursus et ex illis soboles nova; grexque protervus
Nunc _humeris irreptet avi_, nunc agmine blando
Certatim placidæ _concurrat ad oscula_ Pollæ."
_Silv._ III. i. 179.
"Again from them springs a new race; a forward little troop, which
sometimes climb on the shoulders of their grandfather, and sometimes, in
pleasing congress, run to catch a kiss from the gentle Polla."
Seneca, _Thyest._ I. 145., has another imitation:
"Exceptus gladio parvulus impio,
Dum _currit patrium natus ad osculum_,
Immatura focis victima concidit."
"The little Pelops, met by the impious sword, while he was running to
receive his father's kiss, fell a premature victim on the hearth."
Claudian, _Rapt. Proserp._ III. 173., has another:
"Hæc post cunabula dulci
Ferre sinu, summoque Jovi deducere parvam
Sueverat, _et genibus ludentem aptare paternis_."
"She was accustomed to bear the little infant, after it had slept in its
cradle, in her fragrant bosom, to present it to almighty Jove, and to
place it sporting on its father's knees."
But the best adaptations and expansions of the thought have been among
the writers of our own country. The earliest allusion to it, I believe,
occurs in Thomson's description of the traveller lost in the snow:
"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,
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."
Next followed Collins, in his Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands,
who, however, seems to have had Thomson chiefly in view:
"For him, in vain, his anxious wife shall wait,
Or wander forth to meet him on his way;
For him, in vain, at to-fall of the day,
His babes shall linger at th' unclosing gate:
Ah! ne'er shall he return."
To him succeeded Dyer:
"The little smiling cottage, when at eve
He meets his rosy children at the door,
Prattling their welcomes, and his honest wife,
-------------------------------- intent
To cheer his hunger after labour hard."
__Fleece_, Book I. 120._
Burns has a picture equal to any of these:
"At length his lonely cot appears in view
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree:
_Th' expectant wee things, todlin', stacher through
To meet their dad with flichterin' noise and glee:_
His wee-bit ingle blinkin' bonnilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
_The lisping infant prattling on his knee_,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil."
_Cotter's Saturday Night._
Burns may have taken the thought from Gray, or some other English
source. But he has not disgraced it by his mode of treating it.
Allen Ramsay, in his _Gentle Shepherd_, has a very pretty allusion to
children, which I have not at hand to consult, but which concludes with,
"While all they ettle at, their greatest wis',
Is to be made o', and obtain a kiss."