---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Spencer, Josephine
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 20
number: 9
published: 1917-07
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Josephine Spencer, "Columbus," *Improvement Era* 20, no. 9 (July 1917): 778.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2009unse
  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: improvementera2009unse
start_page: 778
end_page: 778
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1917-07)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2009unse
  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.
---

# Columbus

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<!-- Source heading: Columbus. -->



Columbus
He  heard  the  Voices — they  whose  whispers  stir
The  aimless  ages  to  direction,  gird
New  globes  with  purpose;  set  a  winged  spur
To  progress,  and  with  breathless,  regnant  word
Startle  a  million  signals  to  be  heard
Forever  through  Life's  vain,  inconstant  whir.
In  his  unfriended  vigils,  when  the  sprays
Of  unknown  seas  beat  at  the  groping  prow
Of  restless  caravel,  through  leaden  days
Of  doubt  and  mutiny,  his  sentient  brow
Caught  palm-spiced  airs — and  the  insistent  vow
Of  his  still  Voices,  through  the  uncharted  ways.
So  in  his  darker  moments,  when  the  chains
Of  ingrates  held  him  helpless,  and  there  grew
The  empty  days,  set  thick  with  hopeless  pains —
Haply  across  his  jaded  spirit  flew
A  wind  from  out  the  dim,  uncharted  blue
Laden  with  scent  of  waiting,  flower-grown  lanes.
And  from  their  haven  he  has  seen  the  land
His  frail  bark  sighted,  through  the  centuries  grow
From  trackless  plain  and  forest,  printless  sand,
To  cities,  nations,  harbors,  where  the  flow
Of  countless  peoples,  seeking  to  and  fro,
Find  refuge  from  Oppression's  girded  hand.
A  peerless  recompense — that  guerdon,  won
So  sorely  in  a  hard  and  sightless  hour;
The  gathered  lusters  of  Time's  orbit  run
To  swell  the  priceless  light  that  is  its  dower,
The  fires  of  liberty — Columbia's  power — -
Rise  endless  and  insistent  as  the  sun.
And  still  shall  rise,  unhindered  by  the  smoke
Of  alien  pyres,  heaped  high  with  human  rights,
No  murk  of  old-world  tyranny  shall  choke
That  mounting  flame  whose  stainless  signal  lights
The  way  of  nations  up  to  unseen  heights —
Nor  its  high  mission  to  the  world  revoke!
Josephine  Spencer