---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Borlase, Jack
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 13
number: 6
published: 1910-04
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Borlase, Jack, "A Reverie," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 6 (April 1910): 521.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1306unse
  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: improvementera1306unse
start_page: 521
end_page: 521
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1910-04)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1306unse
  publication_year: 1910
  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 1910, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# A Reverie


<!-- page:521 -->

——

THE GRASSHOPPER FAMINE.                                521

equal in those days, and all we asked was enough to eat until we
could raise crops to supply us with food.
I    have always regarded this as one of                 my greatest opportu-
nities for doing good, and often of late years I have been visited by

those with whom I shared the necessaries of life during those try-
ing days.
Since that time          I   have been much interested in the            fish in

Utah lake, and many times have I given loads of fish from my nets
to those who were in need.
I    am now in the 86th year of my life, and am still interested
in   the    protection of Utah's           fish,   for   I   feel that they played an
important part in saving the people from starvation in early days,
and am sure they will continue to grow into an important resource
in the     development of our great state.
Provo, Utah.

A Reverie.
(For the Improvement Era.)

Down near the banks of the Jordan
Is a cottage that's weathered and           worn,
But I love it,    —   its age I will    pardon —
It's the cottage*where Maggie was born.

Though the flowers once tended by Maggie,
No longer the cottage adorn,
And the trees and the hedges are shabby,
And the old willow bridge looks forlorn,
Though the birds that sang in the meadow,
And the bees and the butterflies there,
Seem all to have passed like a shadow,
And the stillness of death fills the air,
Still I   think, as I sit in my mansion,
Where I dream from the eve till the morn,
Of the days when I used to court Maggie,
In the cottage where Maggie was born.

Jack Borlase.
Lehi, Utah.