THE LOVER SPEAKS TO THE HEARERS OF HIS SONGS IN COMING DAYS

O WOMEN, 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 all that sin I wove in song,
Till the Attorney for Lost Souls cry her sweet cry,
And.call to my beloved and me:  'No longer fly
Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.'