[Music]
I'm dying, Mother, dying now,
Please raise my aching head;
And fan my heated, burning brow,
Your boy will soon be dead.
Turn o'er my pillow once again,
And kiss my fever'd cheek;
I'll soon be free from all the pain,
For now I am so weak.
Now light the lamps, my mother dear,
The sun has pass'd away;
I soon must go, but do not fear,
I'll live in endless day.
I'm sinking fast, my mother dear;
I can no longer dwell;
Yet I'll be with you, do not fear;
But now, O now, farewell.
A band of angels beckon me,
I can no longer stay;
Hark! how they sing: "We welcome thee;
Dear brother, haste away."
The hour has come, my end is near;
My soul is mounting higher.
What glorious strains salute my ear
From heaven's angelic choir.
Their flowing robes in brightness shine;
A crown is on each head;
Say, mother, will not such be mine
When I am with the dead?
Then do not weep, sweet mother, now,
'Twill break this body frail;
Those burning tears fall o'er my brow,
Farewell, O fare thee well.
The _Sacred Harp_ says this was "composed by H. S. Rees, 1859". Is it
perhaps a parody of Wm. Haines Lytle's 'I'm Dying, Egypt, Dying'?
Lytle was a cousin of Stephen Collins Foster whose own song 'For the
Dear Old Flag I Die' shows close kinship in words and tune to 'Dying
Boy'. (See my article in _The Musical Quarterly_, xxii., No. 2.) There
is a resemblance also between the 'Dying Boy' tune and a seventeenth
century psalm tune called variously 'Bella', 'Leeds', 'Needham' and
'Derby'; see _Hymns Ancient and Modern_, Historical ed., London,
Clowes, 1909, p. 79.
No. 16
SAW YE MY SAVIOR, CH 42