---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Goethe
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: 'Goethe, "To the Husbandman: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 7 (May 1899): 517.'
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: 517
end_page: 517
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.
---

# To the Husbandman: A Poem

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—

      TWO CLAIMANTS TO THE THRONE OF FRANCE.                                 517

one, has totally failed of solution.     No compact can be entered into
with any power, contiguous or remote, with absolute confidence on
the part of that power that the          compact    will   be kept.    It pre-

sents a foreign policy as vacillating and hesitating as            it is   weak.
And with the liberty it has given has it not invited disorder to that
extent that the end has defeated the means?           To change all this
to cleanse the body politic of   all    impurities, impurities that have
within them the seeds of a rapid decadence —and bring France out
of the darkness into the light and       make of her the pure, proud,
powerful and progressive nation that she ought to be and can be,
can only be brought about by the re-establishment of the monarchical idea.
     France may some day see the light as the monarchists profess
to have it and discard the republic and call         back again the monarchy; and again she may not.          She may have shaken herself free
forever of monarchical usages and traditions and determined to
maintain   her present form of government.                 As I   said in the
beginning it is a problem which only the future can solve.

                     TO THE HUSBANDMAN.

           A little furrow holds thy scattered seed,
           One somewhat deeper will receive thy bones.
                                                —
           Yet plough and sow with gladness from the soil
           Springs the rich crop that feeds and gladdens life,
           And hope is not quite vanished from the grave.
                                                              GOETHI