The Dying Girl Poem by Mary Weston Fordham

Sister darling, ope the window, let the balmy air once
more
Fan my flushed and throbbing brow as in the happy
days of yore;
I would gaze again in rapture on the brightly setting sun
For I know, my gentle sister, that the goal is almost
won.

See the crimson clouds are hov'ring round the glorious
orb of day,
And the far-off hills are basking in its golden, garnished
ray;
Listen to yon forest warbler hymning sweet and joyous
lay,
Chanting forth its evening vespers to the sinking god
of day.
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But sister, time is waning, after all it doth but seem
That life is but a toilsome march, a weariness, a dream;
And yet I do not murmur, for if all the joys of earth
Had not faded from my vision ere they ripened into
birth,
If the shadows had not thickened as they clustered
round my brow,
Had I not turned from the altar, where I worshipped
long ago,
Perchance I might have reveled full too deep in human
love,
And forgotten God, my Maker, and my happy home
above.

So 'tis well, and now I'm going to join that spirit band,
With their never-ceasing music, making glad that
starry land;
And I'm glad too, for I'm weary, and would rest me
from my woe-
Fain would land my stricken spirit on the banks of
'Evermore.'

And O! my dearly loved one, when sorrows round
thee press,
Hurling each deadly missile on thy pure and youthful
breast-
Then think upon thy dear one, O! may ne'er thy
footsteps rove! [above.
But meet me, surely meet me, in that happy home

Night's shades hung o'er the valleys and obscured the
forest green-
'Twas o'er; that happy spirit had been robed in spot-
less sheen,
So they laid her 'mong the flowers, and the zephyr's
tuneful play
Resounds a woodland requiem at the sunset of each
day.