O, colleens, kneeling by your altar rails long hence, When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer, And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;
Bend down and pray for the great sin I wove in song, Till Maurya of the wounded heart cry a sweet cry, And call to my beloved and me: 'No longer fly 'Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.'