---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Baggarley, Maud
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: 'Maud Baggarley, "The Hunch-Back. A Poem," *Improvement Era* 17, no. 5 (March 1914): 470.'
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: 470
end_page: 470
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.
---

# The Hunch-Back. A Poem

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470 IMPROVEMENT ERA
from starvation, or at the hands of wild tribes, while in quest of
the mythical Quivera. They were not greatly mistaken, for the
army that returned to Mexico was only a forlorn remnant of the
sadly depleted army.
Toward the close of the sixteenth century, the country was
again taken possession of by Onate, whose wife was a granddaughter of Cortez and a great-granddaughter of Montezuma, the
conquered chief of the Aztecs.
[The next article of this series will deal with "Later Spanish and
American Occupancy of the Colorado Desert Region."]
The Hunch-Back
Downcast and sad the hunch-back crept
Among the straight and tall;
Not one marred body did he see,
But all seemed perfect — all.
"O Lord," he cried in bitterness,
"O why and wherefore I?
Each day I'm crucified anew,
Though dying do not die."
Then to his anguished soul there came
The message born of need,
A flame of fire,
A cautery for weak desire:
"Thy body, vestment of a priest may be,
That wraps a holy one within,
Or rags that hide a beggar
Who doth wait for alms.
Yet who might challenge fate!
And e'en make gods applaud.
"Like One, whom prophets said of old
Should have of beauty not a trace,
Yet God's own glory shone upon his face —
That doer of brave deed and high!
Which marked him transient from the sky.
"Then go thou forth and write upon thy heart:
Each hath his place; each hath his part,
Each hath his secret sorrow, too.
And in the market-place are those
Who would be glad to change with you!
God alone doth know.
Then let thy soul in stature grow — each day
Until its garment, grown too small,
Is left beside the way."
Maud Baggarley.