What meaneth this sad, this fearful change,
That withers my heart with woe?
The house of my father all joyless and lone,
Its halls and its gardens with weeds overgrown,—
A dreadful and strange overthrow!
No conquering heroes, no hounds for the chase,
No shields in array on its walls,
No bright silver goblets, no gay cavalcades,
No youthful assemblies or high-born maids,
An omen of sadness—the home of our youth
All ruined, deserted, and bare.
Alas for the chieftain, the gentle and brave;
His glories and sorrows are stilled in the grave,
And we left to live in despair!
From ocean to ocean, from age unto age,
We have lived to the fulness of time;
Through a life such as men never heard of we've passed,
In suffering and sorrow our doom has been cast,
By our stepmother's pitiless crime!
The children of Lir remained that night in the ruins of the palace—the home of their forefathers, where they themselves had been nursed; and several times during the night they chanted their sad, sweet, fairy music.
Early next morning they left Shee Finnaha, and flew west to Inis Glora, where they alighted on a small lake. There they began to sing so sweetly that all the birds of the district gathered in flocks round them on the lake, and on its shore, to listen to them; so that the little lake came to be called the Lake of the Bird-flocks.
During the day the birds used to fly to distant points of the coast to feed, now to Iniskea of the lonely crane,[XXIV.] now to Achill, and sometimes southwards to Donn's Sea Rocks,[XXV.] and to many other islands and headlands along the shore of the Western Sea, but they returned to Inis Glora every night.
They lived in this manner till holy Patrick came to Erin with the pure faith; and until Saint Kemoc came to Inis Glora.
The first night Kemoc came to the island, the children of Lir heard his bell at early matin time, ringing faintly in the distance. And they trembled greatly, and started, and ran wildly about; for the sound of the bell was strange and dreadful to them, and its tones filled them with great fear. The three brothers were more affrighted than Finola, so that she was left quite alone; but after a time they came to her, and she asked them—