Attempt > Volume 1 and Select writings

THE ATTEMPT
129
Ever goetli it before,
That low music leading on,
Staying by the golden door
Of lone pavilion,
Silent as the silent skies,
Where the charmed beauty lies,
By soft folds o’er-canopied,
Silken-woven, azure-dyed;
Fringed lashes slumber-laden,
On her cheek’s soft crimson prest,
Lovely is that sleeping maiden,
In her lonely rest.
Sweet was that enchanted sleeping,
With long ages o’er her sweeping,
’Mid enchanted bowers,
Sweeter with those waking hours,
Love’s unfolding flowers.
J. I. L.
©it Sunbag ^otbing.
We Scotch have somewhat misty ideas on the subject of what we ought and what
we ought not to read on a Sunday. We have an instinctive dread of being happy on
our day of rest—we have a comfortable feeling of doing right when sitting of an evening
with a dry book in our hands. Not that we think it necessary to give more than a
moderate share of attention to its pages—it is sufficient for us to have it on our knee or
on the table before us. Under cover of thus studying our deep book, we feel no qualms
of conscience in indulging in a quiet sleep, only broken by the large book slipping
from our grasp and falling noisily to the ground. How quickly we seize it up, how
nervously we look around us, hoping that no observing eye is upon us. And then
recommences the dull routine—a few pages read, a few moments repose enjoyed, to be
again awakened by the tiresome book which will follow the force of attraction. Now,