He lies quiet there now.
High in the chantry in his small box at Downside.
Dismembered in life, little memory does now he sow.
His body here in the Abbey, his head at Drogheda because one Oates lied.

This gentle man stranger to ambition and to sin.
Crushed in politic’s greedy claw.
A pastor only, yet his a martyr’s crown to win.
His body cut by unforgiving rope and cruel saw.

He could with scholarly teaching have stayed in Rome.
In the quiet garden at Propaganda Fide College.
His head buried in a holy tome.
Only concerned with imparting scripture’s knowledge.

But to Ireland and death his duty called.
And we with our timid faith, at his death just stand and applaud.