---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Clift, Charles
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 10
number: 3
published: 1907-01
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Clift, Charles, "A Dream: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 10, no. 3 (January 1907): 211.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1003unse
  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: improvementera1003unse
start_page: 211
end_page: 211
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1907-01)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1003unse
  publication_year: 1907
  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 1907, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# A Dream: A Poem

<!-- page:211 -->

THE SPIRITUAL VALUE OF FRESH AIR. 211
development. The evil, however, that we bring upon ourselves
through neglect is the natural accompaniment of spiritual stupidity.
Salt Lake City, Utah.
A

<!-- page:211 -->

DREAM.
{For the Improvement Era.)
"The Night has a thousand Eyes." Bourdillon.
To dream is not to rest for aye
The rest that comes to U3 in sleep,
When midnight dreams our slumbers share,
Is not the calm that soothes the soul
The frame in glad repose may lie
And gather strength its day to fill
But "balmy sleep" unto the brain
The sweetest rest will ever yield.
I lay, and in my dream I saw
A bird, with plumage white as snow;
It soared, but I beheld a chain
That held it very near the earth
The bond I loosed; away it flew;
Above the housetops, on it passed,
On by the river's side; its coarse
To me appeared "erratic, but
As if it changed its will, —like boys
That stray from home and sudden turn,
And then would hide within the home
Whose comfort and whose love they fain
Once more would long to share, and dwell
Secure from all the world's dark frowns,
So turned my dove: e'en now I seem
To see the speed with which it flew
Back to the home so lately left;
And with an air of triumph passed
Unled into its quiet cot.
* * *
A lesson from my dream appears —
Though one by me most fully known—
That in the home, not in the world,
The truest happiness is found.
Charles Clift
Lisbon, Portugal.