---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Townsend, J. L.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 8
number: 2
published: 1904-12
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'J. L. Townsend, "The Mountain Peak: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 8, no. 2 (December 1904): 92–93.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0802unse
  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: improvementera0802unse
start_page: 92
end_page: 93
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1904-12)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0802unse
  publication_year: 1904
  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 1904, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Mountain Peak: A Poem

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—

        THE MOUNTAIN PEAK.
            (For the Improvement Era.)

When o'er the vastness of thy buttressed sides,
In gorge and canyon the deep snows are laid,
How great is thy magnificence!
                                   The sun
His glory on thy white-robed peak then rests,
Dazzling the hills that look at thee in awe,
And worship at thy feet.
                            The clouds revere
Thy majesty and gather round thy breast
Too base to rise, where, in imperial power,
Aloft thy proud head towers in the sky,
And looks serenely down upon the vales.

Here on thy crown, eternal Solitude
Has held communion with the silent stars.
Here on thy bosom, all the seasons through,
Hath Winter sat upon his crystal throne,
And watched sweet Spring caress the hills and dells;
And dreamy Summer dress the canyon bowers;
And Autumn weave her gorgeous tapestries
O'er slopes and battlements.  But thou, serene,
Untroubled by the fruitless work of Time,
No change dost know.
                       Within thy solitude
The storm-king summons oft his hordes of war.
The wild winds rave.   The vapors rush along
All black as Night, mysterious, sublime!
And Titan strikes at Titan, till the blows
Flash lurid lightning o'er the darkened sky,
And deep-toned thunders roll from cloud to cloud,
And oft reverberate from cloud to peak,

<!-- page:93 -->

THE MOUNTAIN PEAK.                                     93

     Yet thou dost smile, and o'er thy face again
     The majesty of silence rests supreme,
     Unchanged in its sublimity.
                                        Here came
     Ambitious man, a pygmy, who did steal
     Across the deep crevasses, scaled the scarps;
     Crawled up the precipice, and, on thy crest
     There 'mid eternal snows, did shout a name,
     And plant an ensign in the icy rocks.

     But, overawed within thy solitude,
     His voice was silenced, and his eyes did fail
     'Mid all the grandeur spread before their view,
     And, paying tribute to ambition's pride,
     Within a winding sheet of fleecy snow,
     He found a royal sepulchre.
                                    Here Night
     Has drawn her sable curtains in the domes
     Of crystal palaces and vast facades,
     Of peristyles of temples shaped in ice;
     While starlight has been scintillate in stars
     Of sheeny snowflakes, sparkling light to light,
     And with innumerable facets still
     Re-multiplying all the hosts on high,
     To give thee greater beauty.
                                        Yet alone!
     Unheeding night, unheeding storm and wind,
     And all the forces of their feeble powers,
     Thou art a coldly placid, voiceless form,
     Till, in communion with the early dawn,

     A roseate flush spreads over thy fair head,
     Announcing that the day king wooes thine heart.
     And in the last caress his golden rays
     Press on thee e'er the twilight climbs thy breast,
     Again thy flushing face reveals its love,
     In crimson blushes lingering long in view,
     Till, in the twilight,   thou hast hid thy face,
     And the pale moon thy beauty wooes in vain.
                                                     J.   L.   Townsbnd.
Payson, Utah.