The adopted daughter :: :: University of Virginia Library

Softly part away the tresses
From her forehead of pale clay,
And across her quiet bosom
Let her white hands lightly lay,
Never idly in her lifetime
Were they folded thus away.
She has lived a life of labor,
She is done with toil and care,
She has lived a life of sorrow,
She hath nothing more to bear;
And the lips that never murmured
Never more shall move in prayer.
You who watched with me beside her
As her last of nights went by,
Know how many times she asked us
If we thought her hour was nigh;
How she told us, always smiling,
She was glad that she could die.
Many times from off the pillow,
Lifting up her face to hear,
She would look as one who watches
Half in hope and half in fear;
Often asking those about her,
If the day were drawing near.

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Till at last as one a-weary
To herself she murmured low;
Could I see him, could I bless him
Only once before I go;
If he knew that I was dying
He would come to me I know!
Drawing then my head down softly
Till it lay beside her own,
Said she, tell him in his anguish
When he finds that I am gone,
That the bitterness of dying
Was to leave him here alone.
Nay! the pang is but a moment—
And my parting words may win
Entrance to his softened bosom
To plead solemnly with sin;
So my death shall prove a blessing
That my life has never been.
Crushing then with one great effort
All her weakness and her woe,
She seemed wrapped in pleasant visions
But to wait her time to go;
And she never after midnight
Spoke of anything below.
But kept murmuring very softly
Of cool streams and pleasant bowers,
Of a pathway going up brightly
Through the fields of endless flowers.
And at daybreak she had entered
On a better life than ours!