---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Frost, Grace Ingles
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 18
number: 10
published: 1915-08
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Grace Ingles Frost, "Longing for Home: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 18, no. 10 (August 1915): 855.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18010unse
  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: improvementera18010unse
start_page: 855
end_page: 855
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-08)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18010unse
  publication_year: 1915
  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 1915, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Longing for Home: A Poem

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Longing for Home

            Unto me, through the open casement,
              Floats an odor of faint perfume,
            The breath   of   awakening blossoms,
             Pervading   my quiet room.
            And below, down there in the garden,
              Are great, bright-winged butterflies,
            All sipping the wonderful nectar
             That deep in each fairy heart lies.

            Though the glorious benediction
              Of nature is everywhere,
            Yet my heart, withal, madly pulses,
              It may not the wonderment share.

            For ne'er doth the cadence of voices,
              To me so beloved, so well known,
            Beguile with that mystical gladness
              That hallows the meaning of home.

            Home! home! Through this world though we wander,
             Our eyes turn with longing to you.
            Home! home! where our childish petitions
             Were lisped in faith, fervent and true.
            Home! home! where a mother is waiting
             To clasp you once more to her breast,
            There to lie passive and peaceful,
              Oh, haven of infinite rest!

            Home! home! oh! it lines the feet upward,
              For heaven, me thinks, would be lone,
            Without the loved faces and voices
              That gather around us at home.
                                             Grace Ingles Frost.