{"id":275,"date":"2020-11-14T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-14T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poetry.newspaperhistory.com\/?p=275"},"modified":"2020-11-14T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-14T06:00:00","slug":"temptation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/temptation\/","title":{"rendered":"Temptation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\"><em>From the <a href=\"https:\/\/chroniclingamerica.loc.gov\/lccn\/sn92053934\/1912-11-14\/ed-1\/seq-4\/\">Rock Island Argus, November 14, 1912<\/a>.\nBy Duncan M. Smith.<\/em>\n \n\n I always want to read a book\n \u00a0 \u00a0 When I have work on hand.\n A most alluring volume then\n \u00a0 \u00a0 Is lying on the stand.\n If I have nothing on my mind\n \u00a0 \u00a0 And work is rather slack\n The selfsame book a week can lie\n \u00a0 \u00a0 Unopened on the rack.\n \n How tempting when I ought to be\n \u00a0 \u00a0 So busy making hay\n Is any book that happens to\n \u00a0 \u00a0 By lying in my way!\n I want to cast my pen aside\n \u00a0 \u00a0 And take a furtive look\n For just about a half an hour\n \u00a0 \u00a0 In that alluring book.\n \n It doesn\u2019t matter to me what\n \u00a0 \u00a0 The volume is about.\n It may be poetry or prose,\n \u00a0 \u00a0 A treatise on the gout,\n A little book on fancy work,\n \u00a0 \u00a0 On how to till the land,\n Just so it serves to turn me from\n \u00a0 \u00a0 The work I have in hand.\n \n But that is not the worst of it\u2014\n \u00a0 \u00a0 Oh, no, that isn\u2019t all!\u2014\n For when temptation thus appears\n \u00a0 \u00a0 The truth is that I fall.\n Nor do I read for half an hour\n \u00a0 \u00a0 And then the covers bang\u2014\n I keep it up for half a day\n \u00a0 \u00a0 And let the work go hang!<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> I always want to read a book<br \/>\n     When I have work on hand.<br \/>\n A most alluring volume then<br \/>\n     Is lying on the stand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[96],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-rock-island-argus","tag-duncan-m-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}