---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Larsen, Lewis W.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 17
number: 6
published: 1914-04
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Lewis W. Larsen, "The Rift. A Poem," *Improvement Era* 17, no. 6 (April 1914): 527.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera176unse
  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: improvementera176unse
start_page: 527
end_page: 527
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-04)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera176unse
  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 Rift. A Poem

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LAZINESS 527
and wisdom, and with the increase of knowledge and wisdom
comes power, and with the increase of power comes greater
capacity for accomplishment. You cannot save your soul and
lose your body. The body and the spirit make the man. Matter
is eternal — indestructible. "Man is saved no faster than he gains
knowledge," says our prophet again. It is the knowledge of the
Christ and of his gospel of salvation, and our application to everyday life of its saving principles, that will regenerate and redeem
our souls.
By a study of the holy scriptures and wholesome literature,
and by a more industrious application to our duties, and a more
religious attendance at our Mutual Improvement meetings, and
our Church services, let us seek to cultivate and improve the finer
qualities of our natures, and thereby build up, not only healthy
physical selves, but strong moral selves, and fine spiritual selves.
Let us eat our own bread, and wear our own garments, and live in
the light of eternal truth and progress, for therein lies the only
true happiness.
"With hand on the spade, and heart in the sky,
Dress the ground and till it;
Turn in the little seed, brown and dry,
Turn out the golden millet.
Work, and your house shall be duly fed:
Work, and rest shall be won:
I hold that a man had better be dead
Than live when his work is done."
BOISE, IDAHO
The Rift
I chose a star to guide my erring feet;
It seemed to be above my journey's end,
Away beyond the mists, out in the deep
And dark uncharted sky where pilgrims wend.
It sent its soft light down along the way
That paled into a silvery, shimmering band;
So I could keep my bearings night and day
And go unpiloted to that fair land.
But after I had traveled many days,
A dark cloud heaved itself athwart the sky,
And I was in a labyrinth of ways,
Nor knew my own from others nearer by.
But, through a rift, I saw my gleaming star,
And hastened then my whereabouts to learn —
Ah, it was plain that I had wandered far,
But not so far that I could not return.
Louis W. Larsen.