---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Marshall, Mariah A.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 2
number: 11
published: 1899-09
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Marshall, Mariah A., "My Life, a Poem," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 11 (September 1899): 814.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera211unse
  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: improvementera211unse
start_page: 814
end_page: 814
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-09)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera211unse
  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.
---

# My Life, a Poem

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MY LIFE.

                  I kept   my money to insure me ease*
                 I saved    my strength for length of days;
                         I shunned the sad

                         To keep me glad
                 And won some heartless praise.

                 My brother perished for my surplus bread;
                 My feeble sister fainted by the way;
                             As proud I strode
                             Along the road,
                "I'm safe," I used to say.

                Money has not secured me ease;
                There is no joy in length of days.
                  .   ^^     Would I had fed,
                             Would I had led
                The weak in their hard ways!
                                          Maria A. Marshall.