{
 "id": "mary-weston-fordham/the-dying-girl",
 "title": "The Dying Girl",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Mary Weston Fordham",
 "poet_slug": "mary-weston-fordham",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Magnolia Leaves",
 "book_slug": "magnolia-leaves",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 23,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1897,
  "venue": "Magnolia Leaves (1897)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/magnolialeavespo00ford"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/mary-weston-fordham_magnolia-leaves",
  "file": "magnolia-leaves.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/mary-weston-fordham-magnolia-leaves-full-text-1897-preface-by-booker-t-washington",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006775637"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 68,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Sister darling, ope the window, let the balmy air once more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fan my flushed and throbbing brow as in the happy days of yore;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I would gaze again in rapture on the brightly setting sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I know, my gentle sister, that the goal is almost won.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "See the crimson clouds are hov’ring round the glorious orb of day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the far-off hills are basking in its golden, garnished ray:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Listen to yon forest warbler hymning sweet and joyous lay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chanting forth its evening vespers to the sinking god of day.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But sister, time is waning, after all it doth but seem",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That life is but a toilsome march, a weariness, a dream;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet I do not murmur, for if all the joys of earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had not faded from my vision ere they ripened into birth,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If the shadows had not thickened as they clustered round my brow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had I not turned from the altar, where I worshipped long ago,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perchance I might have reveled full too deep in human love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And forgotten God, my Maker, and my happy home above.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So ’tis well, and now I’m going to join that spirit band,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With their never-ceasing music, making glad that starry land;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I’m glad too, for I’m weary, and would rest me from my woe⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fain would land my stricken spirit on the banks of “Evermore.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And O! my dearly loved one, when sorrows round thee press,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hurling each deadly missile on thy pure and youthful breast⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then think upon thy dear one, O! may ne’er thy footsteps rove!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But meet me, surely meet me, in that happy home above.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Night’s shades hung o’er the valleys and obscured the forest green⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas o’er; that happy spirit had been robed in spotless sheen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So they laid her ’mong the flowers, and the zephyr’s tuneful play",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resounds a woodland requiem at the sunset of each day.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}