---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Osmond, Alfred
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 9
number: 11
published: 1906-09
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Alfred Osmond, "The Goddess of Song: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 9, no. 11 (September 1906): 882.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0911unse
  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: improvementera0911unse
start_page: 882
end_page: 882
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1906-09)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0911unse
  publication_year: 1906
  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 1906, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Goddess of Song: A Poem

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THE GODDESS OF SONG. (For the Improvement Era.)

 1.

 The goddess of song is ruled out of existence By princes of progress and modern display; She aids not our life, but she offers resistance

 To all our great interests of profit and pay.

 2.

 She once was a creature of beauty and glory, And had sweet communion with angels above But gone are those days and forgotten the story That taught man her mission of mercy and love.

 3.

 The loftiest peaks of the mountain of learning The goddess of song has inspired men to scale; And when from those bleak, icy crags he was turning, She taught him that courage and toil would prevail.

 4.

 This friend of the world was received so unkindly, While calling the soul to her lofty ideal, That man in his sorrow must wander on blindly In search of the truths that she came to reveal.

 5.

 Her concordant tones will again be heard ringing; The scorn of the world cannot stifle her voice Her anthems of love she again will be singing, And men in her presence again will rejoice.

 6.

 Our Miltons may die and our Shakespeares may perish, But music divine is the heart-throb of life A pulse that the whole world will yet learn to cherish. For concord must reign o'er the kingdoms of strife.

 7.

 We'll gaze on the forms of her future creations — They'll shine with a splendor that age will increase She'll build her a home with the friends of the nations,

 And conquer the world with her ballads of peace. Alfred Osmond. Provo, Utah.