---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Pearson, Sarah E.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 1
number: 6
published: 1898-04
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Sarah E. Pearson, "Tears, a Poem," *Improvement Era* 1, no. 6 (April 1898): 398.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera16unse
start_page: 398
end_page: 398
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1898-04)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16unse
  publication_year: 1898
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1898, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Tears, a Poem

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TEARS.
      My little one, with sobs and cries of pain,
          Flew straight to the sure shelter of my breast
      Her haven from all earthly grief and woe.
          I   gently wiped the streaming tears away,
          And kissed her flushing cheek and trembling lip;
      And smoothed the tawny mass of tangled curls;
          And crooned a lullaby into her ear;
                                  And she was comforted.
      She clasped her dimpled arms about my neck
                                       And smiled   —and   slept.

               Years passed.    Those selfsame feet, with languid tread,
                     Again sought shelter in the mother nest.
               I   clasp her wasted form close to my heart
                   Bowed now, alas! with care and aged with grief
               And smoothed the shining locks of silvered hair;
                   And freely mingled saddest tears with hers.
              "O, these are woes, " I cried, "a mother's love
                  "Can soothe with sympathy, but cannot heal.
              "Look up, my darling child, and trust in him
                  "Who binds our broken hearts." Her sad brown eyes,
               Darkened so long with sorrows born of earth,
                     Cleared with a look of peace ineffable.
               She clasped her thin, white arms about my neck
                                                And smiled — and died.
                                                           Sarah E. Pearson.