Of our later poets Elder Orson F. Whitney, of the Council of the Twelve, has most celebrated the Nephite volume of scripture in his great poem "Elias." One canto (VI) is wholly devoted to the Book of Mormon under the caption "From Out the Dust." In this Canto Elder Whitney treats the whole theme of America as a land of promise-- The Old World, not the New,--this soil misnamed; Cradle of man and grave of nations vast, Whose glory, wealth, and wisdom had outfamed The mightiest of known empires, present, past; The land where Adam dwelt, where Eden cast Forth from her flaming gate the fateful pair Who fell that man might be; a fall still chaste, Albeit they sinned, descending death's dread stair To fling life's ladder down, Love's work and way prepare. Of the decrees of God respecting the land, he writes. The God of freedom, God of justice, swore No tyrant should this chosen land defile; And nations here, that for a season bore The palm of power, must righteous be the while, Or ruin's avalanche ruin on ruin pile. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Race upon race has perished in its pride, And nations lustrous as the lights of heaven Have sinned and sunk, in reckless suicide, Upon this soil, since that dread word was given. Realms battle-rent and regions tempest-riven; The wrath-swept land for ages desolate; A wretched remnant blasted, crust, and driven Forth by the furies of revengeful fate; Till wonder asks in vain, What of their former state? Wouldst know the cause, the upas-tree that bore The blight of desolation? 'Tis a theme To melt Earth's heart, and move all Heaven to pour With sorrow's heaving flood, as when supreme O'er fallen Lucifer, the generous stream Of grief half quenched the joy of victory. Mark how the annals of the ages teem With repetition? Time, eternity, The same have taught; but, few, alas! the moral see. There is a sin called self, which binds the world In fetters fell, than all save truth more strong; A sin most serpentine, round all men curled, And in its fatal fold earth writhes full long; Crime's great first cause, the primal root of wrong, Parent of pride and tree of tyranny. To lay the axe doth unto thee belong. Strike, that the world may know of liberty, And Zion's land indeed a land of Zion be! The poet treats successively the Jaredite and Nephite occupancy of the western world in the same noble strain of poetry. He closes the Jaredite period with these verses, celebrating the last acts of the two survivors of the Jaredite nation, Ether the Prophet, and Coriantumr the last of the Jaredite kings.