Depart from me, ye snow-white swans,
With your music and Gaelic speech:
The crystal Darvra, the wintry Moyle,
The billowy margin of Glora's isle;—
Three hundred years on each!
Victorious Lir, your hapless sire,
His loved ones in vain shall call;
His weary heart is ,
His home is joyless for evermore,
And his anger on me shall fall!
Through circling ages of gloom and fear
Your [anguish] no tongue can tell;
Till faith shall shed her heavenly rays,
Till ye hear the Taillkenn's [anthem] of praise,
And the voice of the Christian bell!
Then ordering her steeds to be yoked to her chariot, she set out once more for the palace leaving the four white swans swimming on the lake.
Our father shall watch and weep in vain;
He never shall see us return again.
Four pretty children, happy at home;
Four white swans on the feathery foam;
And we live on the waters for evermore,
By tempests driven from shore to shore.
VI.
THE FOUR WHITE SWANS ON LAKE DARVRA.
Lir and his people, hearing that Eva had arrived at Bove Derg's palace without the children, became alarmed, and went southwards without delay; till passing by the shore of Lake Darvra, they saw the swans. And the swans swam up and spoke to them, at which they wondered greatly. But when they told Lir that they were indeed his four children whom the witch-lady had turned into birds, he and his people were struck with [amazement] and [horror]; and they uttered three long mournful cries of grief and [lamentation]. And when Lir had heard from Finola how the matter happened, he prepared to set out in quest of Eva. And bidding farewell to the children for a time, he chanted this lay:—
The time has come for me to part:
No more, alas! my children dear,
Your rosy smiles shall glad my heart,
Or light the gloomy home of Lir.
Dark was the day when first I brought
This Eva in my home to dwell!
Hard was the woman's heart that wrought
This cruel and [malignant] spell!