The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-26 00:00:00

THE DYING GIRL.

(Pom the Christian Life. By Montgomery.)
kulacribed to Philip Rose, Esq., the founder of the
Hospital for Consumption.)
k
--(er sun is gone down while it was yet day."—Jer. ay. 9.

" CONSUMPTION.
" A beauty clothes her hectic cheek,
A radiance fills that sunken eye,
But when her mellow'd accents speak
They make the sadden'd hearer sigh;
For softer sink they in their cadence far
4441 autumn's dying tone beneath some mournful star.
" They bore her to that healthful isle Whose rocks of terraced verdure rise
And catch the morn's celestial smile,
A "Re9onsive to the greeting skies;
IV-11`1 prophesied, the island bresze
Quid freshen her white cheek, and waft away disease.
But there she sicken'd, day by day,
In shrinking paleness, like a flower,
Yet from her glance there shined a ray
. Of almost supernat'ral power ;
That
such clear brightness did her eyeballs roll,
eat through them fancy saw the lustre of the soul.
" For mother too, and far-off home,
Fier plaintive heart in secret cried,
And backward long'd her soul to roam,
.Since in the churchyard, side by side,
B"Aluer the green turf where loved sisters lay,
K _
would her dust might wait the awful Judgment-day.
" And they behold her once again
Q In her own rocm, with placid brow;
o pale, you see each azure vein
OfYMeander through her beauty now:
ets like a pulse of rosy light at even,
14 to her faded cheek a crimson flush is given.
4, Seldom she sighs, but veils within
Much that would grieve fond Lore to know,
And when some pensive tears begin
Safe
She tries to check their overflow;
Nor
in the arms of Jesu rests her soul,
mor does the early grave with gloom the mind control.
" Not for herself, but for the heart
Of love parental she could weep;
And often in her dreams will start,
And snake some watching gazer weep,
A AS faintly through her lips there steals a word,—
"nd Ohl my mother dear!' is like low music heard.
" She dies,—as beauty ever dies
When sad consumption finds a tomb;
With brilliance in her deep-bet eyes,
And on her face a healtbless bloom;--
....No harsh transition, but a soft decay,
Like dream-born tones of night, that melt by dawn away.
"And now the dying scenes advance
Nearer and nearer to the goal,
For death gleams in that deeppn'd glance
Betray the egress of the soul;
Solemn she is, but no complaining sigh
Breaks from a burden'd heart, to think her youth must
die. .
"They wheel her round each garden-walk
Where oft her lisping childhood play'd,
And loved to hear the old nurse talk,
Azad soothe her when she seem'd afraid,
While danced her ringlets as she prattled on,
More playful than the birds she loved to gaza upon.
"She looks as they alone who feel
The list of earth before them lies,
While o'er them soften'd mem'ries steal
, Which melt the heart into the eyes,—
"r, tree and turret, woods and uplands, all
Back to the dying girl her childish past recall !
" bream like the hush of twilight floats
Veiling the lilac bowers around;
While in the air melodious notes
~., Of soft dejection sweetly sound.
e landscape, like a conscious mourner, seems
40 lie in brooding shade, and sadden as it dreams.
New, to her chamber back ref urn'd,
Before the casement calm reclined,
Just as the broad horizon burn'd
With the last blush day left behind—
z•ader eYe was center'd on the dying sun,
ing like feeble youth, before life's course is rua.
" liusla'd is the breezeless air, and deep
The awe around each mourner stealing;
Bend o'er her form, but do not weep,—
Leath is too grand for outward feeling!
t,048 sinks the sun beneath yon golden sea,
ebbs her spirit back to God's eternity."