---
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: 6
published: 1899-04
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "The Aziola: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 6 (April 1899): 418.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera26unse
  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: improvementera26unse
start_page: 418
end_page: 418
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-04)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera26unse
  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 Aziola: A Poem

<!-- page:418 -->

418                   IMPROVEMENT ERA.

few weeks before her death, with a fearful accuracy.          Be it as it
may, they cost her her life, as she never recovered from the
effects of the terror, and pined and wasted away to the hour of her
death, which followed in about two months after the fearful occurrence.  For my part, I firmly believe all she told us; and though
my father, who came home the spring following, used to say it
was all a dream or the   effects of imagination, I always      saw too
many concurrent circumstances attending it to permit me to think
so.

                          THE AZIOLA.

               "Do you not hear the Aziola cry?
          Methinks she must be nigh."
                          Said Mary, as we sate
          In dusk, ere stars were lit or candles brought;
                          And I, who thought
          This Aziola was some tedious woman,
          Ask'd, "Who is Aziola?"— How elate
          I felt to know it was nothing human,

          No mockery of myself or fear, or hate:
                           And Mary saw my soul,
          And laugh'd, and said, "Disquiet yourself not;
                           'Tis nothing but a little downy owl."

          Sad Aziola! many an eventide
                           Thy music I had heard
          By wood and stream, meadow and mountain side.
          And fields and marshes wide
          Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird
                          The soul ever stirred;
          Unlike^and far sweeter than them all.
          Sad Aziola! from that moment I
          Loved thee, and thy sad cry.
                                                   Shelley.