---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 17
number: 5
published: 1914-03
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: "Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, \"Be Careful of Your Words. A Poem,\" *Improvement Era* 17, no. 5 (March 1914): 435."
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1705unse
  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: improvementera1705unse
start_page: 435
end_page: 435
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-03)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1705unse
  publication_year: 1914
  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 1914, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Be Careful of Your Words. A Poem

<!-- page:435 -->

JIM BRIDGER, "OUR FIRST CITIZEN" 435
took the Major and as I came up to him overheard him remark about
these damn paper-collared soldiers telling him there were no columns
of smoke.
"It afterwards transpired that there was an Indian village in the
immediate locality designated."
The following excellent tribute is from a recent history of
the State of New Mexico:
"Jim Bridger was the most conspicuous figure among the old
mountaineers. He was a trail maker in every sense of the word.
The greatest fur-hunter and the greatest path-finder of them all, and
possessing the most intimate knowledge of the Indian nature ever
vouchsafed a white man, Bridger will grow in stature as time goes
on and accurate history is written.
"The Rocky Mountains had no secrets for him. He was the first
to look upon Great Salt Lake. Seemingly bearing a charmed life, he
wandered through the Indian's country, sometimes fighting, but more
often living their life, and finding a solace of true brotherhood at the
lodge fire. Every mountain climbed by him, and every stream he
crossed was written down in the most marvelous memory ever
granted to a mountaineer."
Be Careful of Your Words
Keep a watch on your words, my darlings,
For words are wonderful things;
They are sweet, like the bees' fresh honey —
Like the bees, they have terrible stings;
They can bless, like the warm, glad sunshine,
And brighten a lonely life;
They can cut, in the strife of anger,
Like an open, two-edged knife.
Let them pass through your lips unchallenged,
If their errand is true and kind —
If they come to support the weary,
To comfort and help the blind ;_
If a bitter, revengeful spirit
Prompt the words, let them be unsaid;
They may flash through a brain like lightning,
Or fall on a heart like lead.
Keep them back, if they are cold and cruel,
Under bar and lock and seal;
The wounds they make, my darlings,
Are always slow to heal.
May peace guard your lives, and ever,
From the time of your early youth,
May the words that you daily utter
Be the words of beautiful truth.
— The Pansy.