---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Robert W. Sloan
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 6
number: 12
published: 1903-10
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Robert W. Sloan, "Tranquility. A Poem", *Improvement Era* 6, no. 12 (October 1903): 900.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0612unse
  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: improvementera0612unse
start_page: 900
end_page: 900
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-10)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0612unse
  publication_year: 1903
  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 1903, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Tranquility. A Poem

<!-- page:900 -->

THE MENACE OF THE TOWER.
                   A WORD         FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY.

BY EDWIN MARKHAM, AUTHOR OF "THE MAN WITH THE HOE, AND
                   OTHER POEMS," ETC.




     [In Italy it is         customary to have bell towers attached to the
churches and town halls.          These bell towers are called campanili, and in
Italy,   contrary to the custom in the north and west of Europe, the
campanile    is    almost always detached from the church.                The most
famous and remarkable campanili are to be found in Venice, Florence,
Siena and Pisa. The leaning tower of Pisa, begun in 1174, is nothing
more than a church tower built to rival the campanile of Venice. The
campanile of Venice was begun in the beginning of the tenth century,
and completed, up to the belfry, about the middle of the twelfth century.
The belfry was not finished until 1517. The total height of the tower
was three hundred and twenty-three feet, and it was forty-two feet square
at the base.           From the level of the piazza to the belfry stage, it was
constructed of brick.           The belfry with its surmounting pyramid were
of marble.        It   was   this thousand-year-old monument that collapsed,     a
few months ago, (July 14, 1902) without warning, and, to the con-
sternation of citizens and visitors, fell into a heap of material, an
utter ruin. The rebuilding of the campanile, in Venice, has now begun,
and it is expected that the structure will be finished by 1906. The fall
of this tower gave Edwin Markham the idea for the poem herewith pre-
sented.
     "The Man with the Hoe," (to be obtained in book form with other of
his poems,) it may be truly said, has created a more profound impression,
                   any other single poem of recent years. It has
in this country, than
stamped Mr. Markham as one of the classic writers, one of the greatest
poets of our time, and the "laureate of labor.''         It is a simple   but vivid