---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Alfred Lambourne
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 21
number: 4
published: 1918-02
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: "Alfred Lambourne, “The Innocents,” *Improvement Era* 21, no. 4 (February 1918): 297."
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2104unse
  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: improvementera2104unse
start_page: 297
end_page: 297
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-02)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2104unse
  publication_year: 1918
  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 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Innocents

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The Innocents

I Behold I see them if I wake or sleep,

1 I seem to look into their mournful eyes,

| By day and night I hear the blameless weep,

1 Or little ghosts unto my sight arise.

I In very truth, 0 Christ, may these things be —

| Shall we awake and find them only dreams?

} Aye those of whom He spoke "Come unto Me,"

1 That they so die too terrible it seems!

1 Lo, as the reign of Herod come again,

| This war-crowned madman in his iron deeds.

| Aye meet the murderers, ye who are men,

Behold the helpless innocence that bleeds:

| Crush while ye may the tyrant in his might;

| Take, O ye brave, a righteous sword and smite!

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