Suburban Picture Theatre.

In docile numbers, placidly, we sit,

With loosely folded hands and resting feet,

While for a quickened period we are quit

Of kitchen, door and wall in narrow street.

Of lines of washing, very often soiled By smoke from fact'ry chimneys much too near.

The quarries and the markets where we toiled

At last are gone, and now our eyes are clear.

To witness Beauty in a hundred ways Unfold before us. And we who have seen

The endless dun procession of the days Now see the joys and follies of a queen.

And, soon forgetful of our confining walls,

Behold in rapture terraces and trees, And marbled palaces and lofty halls, And lovely swaying women—all of these.

Bring to our world a world we cannot know.

Adds to the grey a scarlet and a gold.

Flashes of fire in realm of ice and snow—

These were our dreams before our dreams grew old.

Who then shall blame us if too oft we sit

With loosely folded hands and resting feet,

If, for a quickened period we are quit

Of kitchen, door and wall in narrow street? —Isobel Andrews.

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