---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Banks, George Linnaeus
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 16
number: 6
published: 1913-04
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Banks, George Linnaeus, "What I Live For. A Poem," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 6 (April 1913): 529–531.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1606unse
  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: improvementera1606unse
start_page: 529
end_page: 531
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-04)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1606unse
  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 I Live For. A Poem

<!-- page:529 -->

WHAT             I    LIVE FOR
                          (Selected)
     I          those who love me,
         live for
         Whose hearts are kind and true,
     For the heaven that smiles above me,
         And awaits my spirit, too;
     For the human ties that bind me,
     For the task by God assigned me,
     For the bright hopes left behind me,
       And the good that I can do.

     I   live to learn their           story
         Who've suffered for my sake,
     To emulate their glory,
       And to follow in their wake;
     Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages,
     The noble of all ages,
     Whose deeds crowd history's pages
       And Time's great volume make.

     I   live to    hold    communion
         With      all    that    is   divine,
     To    feel    there     is   a union
         'Twixt Nature's heart and mine;
     To profit by affliction,
     Reap truths from fields of fiction,
     Grow wiser from conviction,
         And fulfil each grand design.

     I   live to hail       that season,
       By gifted minds foretold,
     When men shall rule by reason,
       And not alone by gold;
     When man to man united,
     And every wrong thing righted,
     The whole world shall be lighted
       As Eden was of old.

     I   live for        those    who love me,
       For those who know me true,
     For the Heaven that smiles above me.
         And awaits my spirit, too
      For the cause that lacks assistance,
      For the wrong that needs resistance,
      For the future in the distance,
        And the good that I can do.
-George Linnaeus Banks, in Dublin University Magazine.

<!-- page:531 -->

—                                                           ;

Improvement Era
 Vol.    XVI                        APRIL, 1913                        No. 6