Long must we haunt that billowy shore,
Ere breaks for us the daybeam splendid,
But here our numbered years are o'er,
Our time on gloomy Moyle is ended.
After that time the children of Lir left the Sea of Moyle, and flew until they came to the most westerly part of the ocean. They were there for a long time, suffering all kinds of hardship, until they happened to see a man, a tiller of the ground, who used often to watch them when they came near the shore, and took great pleasure in listening to their music. He told the people on the coast of what he had seen, and spread the tidings of the prodigy far and near. However, the same tale remains to be repeated, for the children of Lir never suffered so much before or after as they did on that very night, after the husbandman had seen them; the frost was so keen, and the snow coming so thick upon the wind. The waters all congealed into ice, so that the woods and the sea were of one color. Their feet stuck to the ground, leaving them unable to move, and they began to utter the most lamentable cries, while Fingula[Pg 50] comforted, and strove to persuade them not to grieve, but in vain; and she repeated these lines:—
Sad are my suffering brethren's piercing cries,
This dreary night!
Sharp drives the snow shower, o'er the moonless skies,
With ceaseless flight!
Where'er they search the frost-bound ocean o'er,