So sleep they by daytime.’ A voice cried, ‘The Fenians a long time are dead.’
A whitebeard stood hushed on the pathway, the flesh of his face as dried grass,
And in folds round his eyes and his mouth, he sad as a child without milk;
And the dreams of the islands were gone, and I knew how men sorrow and pass,
And their hound, and their horse, and their love, and their eyes that glimmer like silk.
And wrapping my face in my hair, I murmured, ‘In old age they ceased’;
And my tears were larger than berries, and I murmured, ‘Where white clouds lie spread
On Crevroe or broad Knockfefin, with many of old they feast
On the floors of the gods.’ He cried, ‘No, the gods a long time are dead.’
And lonely and longing for Niamh, I shivered and turned me about,