The Song of Crede, Daughter of Guare

These are arrows that murder sleep
At every hour in the bitter-cold night:
Pangs of love throughout the day
For the company of the man from Roiny.

Great love of a man from another land
Has come to me beyond all else:
It has taken my bloom, no colour is left,
It does not let me rest.

Sweeter than songs was his speech,
Save holy adoration of Heaven's King;
He was a glorious flame, no boastful word fell from his lips,
A slender mate for a maid's side.

When I was a child I was bashful,
I was not given to going to trysts:
Since I have come to a wayward age,
My wantonness has beguiled me.

I have every good with Guare,
The King of cold Aidne:
But my mind has fallen away from my people
To the meadow at Irluachair.

There is chanting in the meadow of glorious Aidne
Around the sides of Colman's Church:
Glorious flame, now sunk into the grave--
Dinertach was his name.

It wrings my pitiable heart, O chaste Christ,
What has fallen to my lot:
These are arrows that murder sleep
At every hour in the bitter-cold night.