---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Kleinman, Bertha A.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 12
number: 12
published: 1909-10
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Bertha A. Kleinman, "A Thought," *Improvement Era* 12, no. 12 (October 1909): 981.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera12012unse
  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: improvementera12012unse
start_page: 981
end_page: 981
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-10)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera12012unse
  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.
---

# A Thought

<!-- page:981 -->

—                                                        ;       ———




              INTERPRETATION OF THE FAUST DRAMA.                                  981

When, heeding no longer the sea's baffled roar,
The mariner turns to his rest evermore;
What will then ue the answer vhe helmsman must give?
Not   — How fared the soul through the trials he passed?
But       What is the state of that soul at the last?

Salt Lake City, Utah.




                                     A THOUGHT.



                                (For the Improvement Era.)

                  In storm oft encompassed   — my radiance dark-veiled,
                      With the triumph of races my mission and part
                  I   have souls at my waiting as worlds for their light

                  Aye, broader than earth is the span of my flight,

                      And behold my abode! it is only a heart.


                  I   speak not alone in the strophes of song,
                      In the passioned revealings of finger-pulsed strings,

                  Not alone in the symmetry graven of stone,
                  Nor hue-burnished canvas    —not there, not alone;
                      Yet these have I touched with the flame of my wings.


                  But the landscape may harbor a pestilent stain,
                      The mask waste to sand and the harpsichord rust
                  Fruition of earth, fleeting embers of time

                  Whilst the gates of Infinitude open with mine,
                         And outlasting the stars, I forever am Trust.
                                                            Bertha A. Kleinman.
Salt Lake City,       Utah.