---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Edmonds, Clyde Candland
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 16
number: 3
published: 1913-01
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Edmonds, Clyde Candland, "What Have You Done. A Poem," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 3 (January 1913): 247–248.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1603unse
  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: improvementera1603unse
start_page: 247
end_page: 248
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-01)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1603unse
  publication_year: 1913
  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 1913, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# What Have You Done. A Poem

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What Have You Done?

              Iponder, as the old year slips away
                To make room for the New Year with its smile,
              And ask myself, "What have you done, I pray,
                                  —
                To better man to make this life worth while?

              "Have you each day some worthy action done?
                Do these twelve months make up your banner year?
              Did you uplift and help a fallen one,
                And fill his heart and soul with love and cheer?

              "Have you some heavy-hearted soul made light,
                With tender word or kindly thought or deed?
              Have you upheld the truth and stood for right,
                Or in some honest heart sown gospel seed?

              "Have you drawn nigh unto your God each day
                In fervent prayer, to seek His guiding hand?
              Or thanked Him for the gospel's glorious ray,
                And for His blessings to you in this land?

              "Have you in humble prayer, shed tears of joy,
                And thanked Him for your mother kind and dear,
              And for His boundless mercies to you, boy?"
               Again I ask, Was this your banner year?

                  "Let not the coming year glide swiftly by
                                                              more.
                    Until you've done all this, and countless
                  Echo the gospel message to the sky-
                    Do good; be good; love truth; and sin deplore."
                                                Clyde Candland Edmonds.
 PRESTON, ENGLAND

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:

                     PLOWING THE VIRGIN SOIL