My succour from all sinful harms
    Be Thou, Almighty Father! 
  And Mary, who, within her arms
    The King of Kings did gather! 
   And Michael, messenger to earth
     From out the Heavenly City,
   The Twelve of Apostolic worth,
     And last the Lord of Pity! 
  That so my soul, encircled by their care,
  Into Heaven’s Golden Halls with joy may fare!

THE WHITE PATERNOSTER.

On going to sleep, think that it is the sleep of Death and that you may be summoned to the Day of the Mountain of Judgment and say: 

  I lay me down with God;
    May He rest here also,
  His Guardian arms around my head,
    Christ’s Cross my limbs below.

  Where wouldst, thou lay thee down? 
    ’Twixt Mary and her Son—­
  Brigit and her bright mantle,
  Colomb and his shield handle,
  God and His strong Right Hand.

  At morn where wouldst thou rise? 
  With Patrick to the skies.

Lamentations

THE SONG OF CREDE, DAUGHTER OF GUARE

In the Battle of Aidne, Crede, the daughter of King Guare of Aidne, beheld Dinertach of the HyFidgenti, who had come to the help of Guare with seventeen wounds upon his breast.  Then she fell in love with him.  He died and was buried in the cemetery of Colman’s Church.

  “These are the arrows that murder sleep,”
  At every hour in the night’s black deep;
  Pangs of Love through the long day ache
  All for the dead Dinertach’s sake.

  Great love of a hero from Roiny’s plain
  Has pierced me through with immortal pain,
  Blasted my beauty and left me to blanch,
  A riven bloom on a restless branch!

  Never was song like Dinertach’s speech,
  But holy strains that to Heaven’s gate reach. 
  A front of flame without boast or pride,
  Yet a firm, fond mate for a fair maid’s side.

  A growing girl—­I was timid of tongue,
  And never trysted with gallants young,
  But, since I won on into passionate age,
  Fierce love-longings my heart engage.

  I have every bounty that life could hold,
  With Guare, arch-monarch of Aidne cold,
  But fallen away from my haughty folk,
  In Irluachair’s field my heart lies broke.

  There is chanting in glorious Aidne’s meadow
  Under St. Colman’s Church’s shadow;
  A hero flame sinks into the tomb—­
  Dinertach, alas, my love and my doom!

  Chaste Christ! that unto my life’s last breath
  I trysted with Sorrow and mate with Death;
  At every hour of the night’s black deep,
  These are the arrows that murder sleep!

THE DESERTED HOME

(An eleventh-century poem)

  Keenly cries the blackbird now;
    From the bough his nest is gone. 
  For his slaughtered mate and young
    Still his tongue talks on and on.