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! I lay me down to rest in vain; For, through the livelong, sleepless night, My little lov'd ones, pictured plain, Stand ever there before my sight. Finola, once my pride and joy; Dark Aed, adventurous and bold; Bright Ficra, gentle, playful boy; And little Conn, with curls of gold;-- Struck down on Darvra's reedy shore, By wicked Eva's magic power: Oh, children, children, never more My heart shall know one peaceful hour. After this he fared southwards till he arrived at the palace, where he found Eva. And the king, Bove Derg, when Lir had told him what Eva had done, was in great wrath; for he loved those little children. And calling Eva to him he spoke to her fiercely and asked her what shape of all others, on the earth, or above the earth, or beneath the earth, she most abhorred, and into which she most dreaded to be transformed. And she, being forced to answer truly, said, "A demon of the air." "That is the form you shall take," said Bove Derg; and as he spoke he struck Eva with a druidical magic wand, and turned her into a demon of the air. She opened her wings, and flew with a scream upwards and away through the clouds; and she is still a demon of the air, and she shall be a demon of the air till the end of time.