---
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: 6
number: 1
published: 1902-11
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "A Sonnet," *Improvement Era* 6, no. 1 (November 1902): 63.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0601unse
  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: improvementera0601unse
start_page: 63
end_page: 63
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1902-11)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0601unse
  publication_year: 1902
  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 1902, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# A Sonnet
<!-- page:63 -->

—               —

                  CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD.                                   63

of its grades.  Wherever possible, curves have been diminished or cut
out altogether, and the grades lessened on an average of one-half.
      When "Jim" Hill built the Great Northtrn, he insisted that there
must be low grades, and the fewest possible curvatures. The expense at
first was great; but it was discovered later that he could haul freight

cheaper than any of the other transcontinental lines. To reach the pace
set by Hill, other lines are removing the obstacles to higher speed and
greater loads.
     In the matter of high speed for passenger trains, France is now
taking the lead.    The fastest trains      in   the   world are reported to be
those from Paris to Amiens, at sixty-three and a half miles per hour:
Paris to Arras sixty-one and a     half per hour.        The train from Paris to
Calais runs one hundred and eighty-six and a half miles in one hundred
and eighty-one minutes.
     In time,    there will undoubtedly      grow up two         distinct classes of
transportation.    The electric   lines will serve the local traveling public,

and convey local freights; while the great steam lines will devote them-
selves to long hauls and great speed. Only the larger cities will receive
the special attention of the latter.
     -The   new changes    in   railroad   economics must have very radical
effects upon every other    economic condition of our country, so that we
are likely to face wholly unexpected as well as new conditions of life.

                                   SONNET.

            The mountain rills flow downward to the plain
            'Mongst rock and bramble, where at every turn
            Grow silver lichens, moss and waving fern,
            Where echoes wake at every bird's refrain.
            They flow and join where noonday sunbeams burn
            To fields of gold and breath of dark green corn;
            So glide the laughing rills at night and morn.
            May I, when called upon to give return
            Of doings good and bad midst strife and woe,
            "I've done thy will," may every answer be;
            And peaceful as the gentle streamlet's flow
            Into the bosom of the great, gray sea,
            May I, whenever I am called to go,
            So glide into the vast Eternity.         Selected.