---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Curtis, Theodore E.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 12
number: 9
published: 1909-07
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Theodore E. Curtis, "The Clearing of the Firmament," *Improvement Era* 12, no. 9 (July 1909): 696–697.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1209unse
  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: improvementera1209unse
start_page: 696
end_page: 697
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-07)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1209unse
  publication_year: 1909
  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 1909, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Clearing of the Firmament

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over the same ground when in 1892 the cap-stone of the                        temple
was laid.    A feast followed of which several thousand people
partook, including sixty Indians, and hundreds of emigrants, as
guests, who were passing through to California.

Salt Lake City, Utah.

                THE CLEARING OF THE FIRMAMENT.

                             (For the Improvement Era.)

      Human life, a muddy current springing out of every clime,
      Rushes like a mighty river, to the precipice of time.

      Plunging headlong from the fountain over manv a desert tract,
      Then a sudden gulf of darkness swallows up the cataract.

      As I look upon the picture   — empty creed or crowded mart
      All my spirit shrinks within   me, and my soul grows sick at heart.

      For the clouds are full of prophecies, the   fields of bitter spleen,

      And the earth is wrapt in darkness, and the world's a tangled skein.

      And I shudder as I linger, looking on a world of strife,
      Where the curse of evil deepens ransoming with human life;

      Rising to a mighty climax, over-reaching all the years,
      Bringing down the sword of vengeance on the reeling hemispheres;

      Many an ancient tower of faith falls in ruins on the sand,
      In the storms of skepticism sweeping over every land.

      And the old light in the chapel long ago has flickered out,
      In the world-wide hurricane of malice, sacrifice and doubt.

      But a dawn has burst upon us, streaming over all the sky
      On the cloud a    silver lining, on the world a   prophecy.

      Bend your eye along the future, far as human eye can see,
      And behold the growing wonder and the miracle to be.

      Let a glad hosanna ring around our planet long and loud,
      For I see the naked orb disrobing in a thunder cloud;

      Climbing upward to the zenith, clothed no longer in a mist,
      Every field a crown of glory, every desert water-kist,

<!-- page:697 -->

THE CLEARING OF THE FIRMAMENT.                                    697

       Comes a new light from the morning, through the ancient darkness hurled,
       And a flood of truth advances, swaying a repentant world;

       Crowding all the night before   it.    Error of the womb of night
       Shrinketh like a guilty shadow, paling in the morning light.

       And the world so long in bondage, shaking off its shackels, slips
       From the shadow-like Orion, rolling from a full eclipse;

       Lifts the darkness from the people; pours the light of heaven in;
       And the rainbow of repentance streams across the cloud of sin.

       Mountain streams of living water flood the ancient barrenness,
       Till the valley of the world becomes   a sea of righteousness.

       Look! the black war cloud has vanished from the battlefield afar,
       Bearing in its guilty bosom the loud thunderbolt of war.

       And the people rise triumphant crying "death afield is dead!"
       And with swords beat into ploughshares, sow the battlefield with bread!

       List! an   anthem shakes the heavens: "Right has triumphed over wrong;"
       With a chorus of the nations harmonizing in the song.

       And a cry of freedom rings from parliaments no longer mute;
       For the peace-field of the peoples ripens into golden fruit.

       Lo! the sun of love advances o'er the world so warm and bright,
       And the shrunken form of malice shrinks away into the night;

       And the worm of greed outwitted crawls from senate, field and mart,
       For the life blood of the nations gushes from one common heart.

       Zion reigneth o'er the harvests, in her hair a sheaf of wheat,
       In her hand a righteous sceptre, either ocean at her feet..

       On her head a crown of glory; in her sacred bosom lies
       The white pearl of chastity; the light of heaven in her eyes.

       Ah, the world cannot but love her, chaste and gentle as a dove,
       In her voice the note of peace, the nations in her arms of love.

       Look! our orb, a shining body, through new heavens bends its flight,
       Sweeping past the range of   vision, buried in a sea of light.

                                                                      Theo. E. Curtis.
Salt   Lake City, Utah.