milk & honey mamas

Contributed by Caroline

Historical Background 

Taken from Eliza R. Snow’s Poetry, BYU Studies: 

“As plural wife of two prophets and sister of a third, as an admired leader of women, and as an acknowledged voice of the Saints to the outside world, Eliza R. Snow was as close to the center of formative events and ideas as any woman of early Mormondom. More than her letters, discourses, or journals, her poems are comprehensive in their scope and as immediate as snapshots in their depiction of Mormon culture. The more than five hundred poems written by Snow capture the lived Mormonism of the nineteenth century, where revelation and history intersected and Latter-day Saints labored for the meeting of heaven and earth they named Zion.” 

“For Snow, the writing of poems was a sacred calling, a means of drawing people closer to God and of building a holy community. Through poetry that evidenced her capacity for revelation, Snow affirmed the promise and possibility of revelation for every ordinary Saint…Snow was without question the most important woman of letters to emerge from early Mormonism.”

Derr, Jill Mulvay and Davidson, Karen L. (2009) “Eliza R. Snow’s Poetry,” BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 48 : Iss. 3 , Article 10. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol48/iss3/10

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Poems

Song for the Camp of Israel

Written the day the Latter-day Saints departed from Sugar Creek, Iowa, journeying like ancient Israel to a place of refuge, this song portrays camp life in unusual and vivid detail. “Most midwestern poetry,” writes John E. Hallwas, “did not reflect the reality of life on the frontier” but focused instead on “romantic diction and sentimentality.” ERS’s poems, however, are strikingly original in subject matter.” Her refrain, “all is well” (l. 32), echoing the watchman’s cry, predates William Clayton’s use of those words in the pioneer anthem now titled “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” which was written on 15 April 1846.

Lo! a mighty host of Jacob

Tented on the western shore

Of the noble Mississippi,

Which they had been crossing o’er;

At the last day’s dawn of winter, 5

Bound with frost and wrapt in snow:

Hark! the sound is onward, onward!

Camp of Israel! rise and go.

All at once is life and motion,

Trunks and beds, and baggage fly; 

Oxen yok’d and horses harness’d,—

Tents roll’d up, are passing by;

Soon the carriage-wheels are rolling

Onward to a woodland dell,

Where, at sunset, all are quarter’d: 

Camp of Israel! all is well.

Thickly round the tents are cluster’d

Neighbouring smokes, together blend;

Supper serv’d, the hymns are chanted,

And the evening prayers ascend. 

Last of all the guards are station’d:

Heavens! must guards be serving here;

Who would harm the houseless exiles?

Camp of Israel! never fear.

Where is freedom? Where is justice? 

Both have from this nation fled;

And the blood of martyr’d prophets

Must be answer’d on its head!

Therefore, to your tents, O Jacob!

Like our father Abram dwell; 

God will execute his purpose:

Camp of Israel! all is well.

[pages 321–22] composed 1 March 1846 published in Millennial Star, 1 July 1848

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A Winter Soliloquy

Just how good a poet was Eliza R. Snow? This poem, along with poems 427 and 428, seems to spring from pure poetic impulse, rather than from ERS’s role as a spokesperson for the Saints, and these poems are among her finest. The dates and circumstances of their composition are unknown. They were first published in Poems 2 (1877). The three poems are written in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter), the form of much of ERS’s most successful work. “A Winter Soliloquy” shows her awareness of the subtle possibilities of the iambic pentameter line. As do all effective writers of blank verse, she occasionally reverses the stress order of the first foot so the stressed syllable begins the line; besides avoiding metrical monotony, each reversed foot (ll. 2, 5, 14, 26, and 27 are examples) calls attention to the drama of the line. Her placement of the line’s natural pause 8 (the caesura) varies from line to line, giving a pleasing rhythmic variety, as does her mixture of end-stopped lines and those that continue without pause. Spring always follows winter, and thus resurrection is inherent in nature. ERS affirms that the sacrifice of the Savior Jesus Christ promises spring and newness of life for humankind. In a wonderful final line, she ties man’s mortal life back to the foreboding metaphor that begins the poem.

I hear—I see its tread as Winter comes—

Clad in white robes, how terribly august!

Its voice spreads terror—ev’ry step is mark’d

With devastation! Nature in affright,

Languid and lifeless, sinks before the blast.

Should nature mourn? No: gentle Spring, ere long,

Will reascend the desolated throne:

Her animating voice will rouse from death,

Emerging from its chains, more beauteous far,

The world of variegated Nature. 

Not so with man—Rais’d from the lowly dust,

He blooms awhile; but when he fades, he sets

To rise no more—on earth no more to bloom!

Swift is his course and sudden his decline!

Behold, to-day, his pulse beat high with hope— 

His arms extended for the eager grasp

Of pleasure’s phantom, fancy’s golden ken

Paints in a gilded image on his heart.

Behold, to-morrow where? Ah! who can tell?

Ye slumb’ring tenants, will not you reply? 

No: from his bow, death has a quiver sent,

And seal’d your senses in a torpid sleep.

Then who can tell? The living know him not:

Altho’ perhaps, a friend or two, may drop

A tear, and say he’s gone—she is no more! 

Hark! from on high a glorious sound is heard,

Rife with rich music in eternal strains.

The op’ning heavens, by revelation’s voice

Proclaim the key of knowledge unto man.

A Savior comes—He breaks the icy chain; 

And man, resuscitated from the grave,

Awakes to life and immortality,

To be himself—more perfectly himself,

Than e’er he bloom’d in the primeval state

Of his existence in this wintry world.

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In the midst of the Missouri persecutions in the late 1830s, Joseph Smith called on Eliza to write on behalf of her people and in their defense.⁴ She accepted the challenge, and by the 1850s, she became known as “Zion’s Poetess.” She wrote more than 500 poems in which she chronicled the history and beliefs of the Saints. Many of her poems became beloved hymns and were sung around pioneer campfires, in meeting rooms, and in temples. Her poetry preserved important teachings from Joseph Smith (including the doctrine of a Mother in Heaven), encouraged Latter-day Saints in their duties, and instructed children in gospel principles.