---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Dunn, Olive M.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 20
number: 5
published: 1917-03
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Olive M. Dunn, "A Friend: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 20, no. 5 (March 1917): 449.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2005unse
  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: improvementera2005unse
start_page: 449
end_page: 449
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1917-03)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2005unse
  publication_year: 1917
  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 1917, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# A Friend: A Poem

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THE UNITED STATES AND GERMANY                                 449

to the domestic affairs of his own nation, and all other
                                                         nations
of Europe to pursue their own courses without any interruption
whatever from him.    He was, indeed, anxious for peace, but the
Prussians and the Russians and the Austrians distrusted him,
and immediately began the collection, of their armies, to end
forever the terror into which the great Napoleon had plunged
all Europe for so many years.
     Napoleon, in all his military achievements, never reached
the military greatness which Germany has acquired within recent years.

                                A Friend
         We may see the gold of the setting sun
         Away in the west as the course is run;
         Catch its shadows, its softness, its brilliant lights
         As it rises to other lands.

         We may see the mountains in lordly strength,
         As they near their crests to the blue sky's length;
         See the crimson of flowers or dark pearl snow,
         As the nearness or distance may bring.

         We may see the silver of mountain stream,
         Where the darting trout and the "wish" stones gleam,
         See the light in the eyes of the startled doe
         Betrayed by the solitude.

         And it all leaves its impress on the soul,
         As memory pictures them scroll upon scroll,      .

         Sometimes in the pause of a hurried life
         When the toil of the day is done.
         Rut the gold of the sun and the mountain's strength,
         With its silvery stream and beauty length,
         Are to me what your friendship has always been,
         While we traveled our several ways.

         I have   caught the beauty of deeds well done,
         The warmth of vour love when all else seemed gone
         The struggling of strength against strength I have known,
         In this friendship of yours and mine.

         And I know I shall picture them all again,
         The beautiful colors your soul contains,
         Feel thp wonderful thrill as they rise again
         When the toil of all days is done!
                                                              Olive M.   Dunn
Sacramento, California