--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Lambourne, Alfred collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 15 number: 8 published: 1912-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Alfred Lambourne, "To the Mummy of the Cliff-Dweller: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 15, no. 8 (June 1912): 688–689.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1508unse 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: improvementera1508unse start_page: 688 end_page: 689 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1912-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1508unse publication_year: 1912 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 1912, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # To the Mummy of the Cliff-Dweller: A Poem gm^r^Sft?: What! Did thine eyes once look upon the sun — Thou who didst lie those ages on the stones? O wan and mummied, gaunt and awful one, Can it be truth that life was in these bones? And thou, how long ago, crouched by the fire, Where long thy tomb was in the high cliff-cave? Didst love a mate, of child wast thou the sire, To all the passions wast thou once a slave? What thoughts once dwelt in that now withered brain; Of earth, what things were last within thy sight? Didst thou know hope and fear and joy and pain; In peace didst die, or in the savage fight? We question thee, but question thee in vain — No answer comes from out the ancient night! //. And from those stony lips once counsel came — The words that held perhaps the tribal fate? But what thy deeds, O now we cannot name, We know not that for which they thought thee great! And warriors did follow at thy yell — When swung that ax of flint within thy hand? No records on the rocks thy prowess tell, Naught that thou didst is known in all the land. Yet this we gather, many called thee chief; The desert sands did long thy treasures hide; That Time, the Reaper, bound thee in his sheaf; The ancient tale is thine— he lived, he died: A mortal thou, and so thy days were brief. Can we boast more? Behold the end of Pride!