---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 2
number: 3
published: 1899-01
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: "Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, \"The Past Year,\" *Improvement Era* 2, no. 3 (January 1899): 222–223."
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera23unse
  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: improvementera23unse
start_page: 222
end_page: 223
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-01)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera23unse
  publication_year: 1899
  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 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Past Year

<!-- page:222 -->

THE PAST YEAR.
It was but yesterday the snow
Of thy dead sire was on the hill;
It was but yesterday the flow
Of thy spring showers increased the rill,
And made a thousand blossoms swell
To welcome summer's festival;
It was but yesterday I saw
Thy harvests wave their golden treasures,
And man, to Nature's genial law
Responsive, taste the season's pleasures; •
And now all these are of the past,
For this lone hour must be thy last!
Thou must depart! where, none may know —
The sun for thee hath ever set;
The star of morn, the silver bow
No more shall gem thy coronet
And give thee glory; but the sky
Shall shine on thy posterity.
Bright as it ever shone on thee;
While as a torrent they are pouring
On where forgetfulness will be
In ambush couched for their devouring.
Where now it waits thy latest sand
From destiny's unpitying hand.
In darkness—in eternal space,
Sightless as a sin-quenched star.
Thou Shalt pursue thy wandering race,
Receding into regions far;
On thee the eyes of mortal men
Shall never, never light again.
Memory alone may steal a glance.
Like some wild glimpse in sleep we're taking,

<!-- page:223 -->

Of a long perished countenance
We have forgotten when awaking
—
Sad, evanescent, color'd weak,
As beauty on a dying cheek.
Whence flow the streams of ages? Where
Pass the perished things its surface bears
—
The breathing life, the joy and care,
The good and evil of earth's years?
And were they made with thee to die
—
Created—who can tell us why?
—
As dewy flowers that bloom today,
Hallowing the summer air with sweetness,
Extinguished ere tomorrow's ray.
Leave but memorials of death's fleetness?
Man alone hopes in distant skies
To bloom mid some bright paradise.
I once had many pleasant gleams
Of thy prospective hours, and things
That turn'd out but delusive dreams,
Fading beneath thy restless wings;
And many unreckoned gift of thine,
I never thought could have been mine;
And many joys, and many pains,
At this thy dying hour departed.
And hopes I dare not count as gains.
And fears which made me coward-hearted.
That soon must be as they were not
—
I, thou, and they, alike forgot!
Farewell! that cold regretful word
To one whom we have called a friend—
•
Yet still "farewell!" I must record
The sign that marks our friendship's end,
Thou'rt on thy couch of wither'd leaves,
The surly blast thy breath receives;
In the stripped woods, I hear thy dirge,
Thy passing-bell the hinds are tolling.
Thy death-song sounds in ocean's surge,
Oblivion's clouds are round thee rolling
—
Thou'lt buried be where buried lie
Years of the dead Eternity! Anon.