---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Bertha E. Anderson
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 7
number: 2
published: 1903-12
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Bertha E. Anderson, "Renewal. A Poem", *Improvement Era* 7, no. 2 (December 1903): 134.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0702unse
  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: improvementera0702unse
start_page: 134
end_page: 134
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-12)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0702unse
  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.
---

# Renewal. A Poem

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—




                  RENEWAL.

            [For the Improvement Era.]

A tumult of doubt is the storm on the noon-day,
  A world of misgiving and error and scorn;
Yet, out of eternity, daily absolving,
  Are hopes that are kindled and souls that are born.

And, shorn of the cloud, there is sunlight infinite;
  And earth in her doubt hath no alien power:
Her fetters are peace, and her triumph obedience,
  And scornings of men are but boasts of an hour.

"I know not his mercy," the outcry discordant,
  Is struck like the wail from one rust-tainted string;

While life's swelling orison, potent with yearning,
  Is   waiting the touch of resounding within.

There is no denial   —
                    a sear leaf dismembered
  Has ceased in its memory of bloom and the vine;
While thrilling and glad with futurity's promise,
  The tendrils are trust-clinging fast to the pine.

A garden dishevelled, life's darkness its impress,
  But clothed in the darkness and under the stain,
The seeds of renewal are holding the springtime,
  And Light is the harvest deep-furled in the rain.
                                  Bertha    E.   Anderson.