---
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: 18
number: 2
published: 1914-12
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Sunset on the Jungfrau", *Improvement Era* 18, no. 2 (December 1914): 157.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1802unse
  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: improvementera1802unse
start_page: 157
end_page: 157
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-12)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1802unse
  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.
---

# Sunset on the Jungfrau

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Sunset on the Jungfrau
       n      Al P st most wonderful mountain there rests
  ,     P ^,
clouds which, as they roll slowly away, reveal
                                                          light fleecv
                                                 in deepest blue the
splendor of its majesty.       Towering heavenward, the Tungfrau
summit, pulsating in the sun's scintillating rays,
                                                     binds the heart
as with a spell.       As
with tongues of flame,
the mantle of dyingday enfolds like a
holocaust her snowy
form. Before our eyes,
the Jungfrau is transformed from the virgin of snow to the
bride of the dying day.
As a virgin she was
immaculate, as a bride
she is glorified.     Encompassed round
 about     with fire, the
 bridal    procession becomes gorgeous beyond comparison.
        The scene      is
changed: the flaming
sunset pales. Transparent clouds of crimson, green, and gold
reflect the coral reefs
of the sea. Then clouds
of varying brilliance,
their     forms silhouetted     againstthe sky,
mingle      and densely
pile together in fragments, drifting when they part, each becoming more and more indistinct as it melts away.  Evening comes with softened charm          ;

her dress most beautiful. Exquisite shades of amber twine with
purple rifts all edged with gold. The day-god's wide procession,
fading, now circles on. It gathers up and weaves stray sunbeams
into its train, one by one.   Ere long this, too, dissolves and floats
awav on banks of silvery sheen. Dark and more somber grows the
eve. Dense shadows gather, interweaving with night's black clouds.
Change follows change, until all is lost in the land of dreams.
Night draws her filmy curtains, one by one, but ere she shuts
the vision out, as it were from the world forever, she lights a single, solemn, wide-eyed star to shine over the Jungfrau's funeral
pyre.                                        Lydia D. Alder