--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Larsen, Louis W. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 14 number: 8 published: 1911-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Louis W. Larsen, "Whispering from the Dust: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 14, no. 8 (June 1911): 678.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1408unse 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: improvementera1408unse start_page: 678 end_page: 678 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1408unse publication_year: 1911 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 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Whispering from the Dust: A Poem Whispering from the Dust. (For the Improvement Era.) (isaiah 29: 3, 4.) Low from the dust an ancient, solemn voice, Tremulous with the message that it bears, Fraught with the tragic lesson of nations Fallen, and splendid races now no more, Is whispering us to hearken and beware; Beware lest pride that goes before a fall, And wealth abused, and transgressed laws of God, Bring us down, too, like them of old, 'gainst whom Jehovah camped and laid siege with a mount. We're not the first to flourish here and hold Dominion on this chosen, fertile soil, To found a great republic in this land, With botsted wealth, and pomp and splendid show; To build great eities on this vast domain, Whose towering spires mount to the skies, And hoard the mountains' wealth, and make the earth Yield up her treasure to the yeoman's craft. We're not the first to tyrannize the weak And rob the poor to swell the miser's gain; To crush beneath oppression's ruthless heel The toiling masses whom we pity not; To persecute the just, and prostitute The virtues that would make a nation strong. List, then, Columbia, to that whispering voice, The far-cry of the Nephites from the dust— They heeded not the sacred word of God, That he would have no Godless people dwell In this, the land he'd chosen for the free— List, then, and heed, ere thou art prostrate too. Louis W. Larsen. Burlington, Vermont.