---
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: 16
number: 4
published: 1913-02
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Kleinman, Bertha A., "I Would Not Know. A Poem," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 4 (February 1913): 309.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1604unse
  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: improvementera1604unse
start_page: 309
end_page: 309
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-02)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1604unse
  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.
---

# I Would Not Know. A Poem

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I   Would Not Know
                     I    would not know the measure of today
                       Lest blind, recursant I
                     Should seek to wile some potent hour away,
                       That pain would sanctify.

                     I    would not list the monQchord of fate
                          All erudite to be,
                      Lest     I   should cringe from anguish consummate,
                          And chortle to be free.

                      Of alchemy, to probe erstwhile, the end,
                          I   seek no whit of power
                      Suffice within    my micr.ocosm's trend.
                          To face each little hour.
                                                             Bertha A. Kleinman.
MESA, ARIZ.