--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Perry, Lilla C. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 2 number: 7 published: 1899-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Perry, Lilla C., "Meeting After Absence: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 7 (May 1899): 496.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera27unse 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: improvementera27unse start_page: 496 end_page: 496 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera27unse 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. --- # Meeting After Absence: A Poem 496 IMPROVEMENT ERA. brothers the world over, and I know that is one of the basic principles of the system, and that belongs strictly to the spirit of Islam. In closing I want to say this: there is no system that has been so wilfully and persistently misrepresented as Islam, both by writers of so-called history and by the newspaper press. There is no character in the whole range of history so little, so imperfectly understood as Mohammed. I feel that Americans, as a rule, are disposed to go to the bottom facts, and to ascertain really what Mohammed was and what he did, and when they have done so I feel that we shall have a universal system which will elevate our social system at least to the position where it belongs. MEETING AFTER ABSENCE. Can I indeed be I, and you be you, Happy yet parted? This far stranger seems Than all the wild imagings of dreams; And yet your face that once so well I knew Smiles through the whirling darkness — yes, 'tis true! The past is past —and memory without pain Wakes as I feel my hand in yours again. And pictures in my mind our last adieu. With trembling voice, cold hand, and paling cheek. — You said good-bye at sunset and alone Went stumbling down the hill to meet the night; — And I I watched the ever-fading light And felt my heart slow turning into stone And waved the last farewell I could not speak. LiLLA C. Perry