Silent, O Moyle! be the roar of thy water, Break not, ye breezes! your chain of repose, While, murmuring mournfully, Lir's lonely daughter Tells to the night-star her tale of woes. When shall the Swan, her death-note singing, Sleep with wings in darkness furl'd? When will Heav'n, its sweet bell ringing, Call my spirit from this stormy world? Sadly, O Moyle! to thy winter-wave weeping, Fate bids me languish long ages away; Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping Still doth the pure light its dawning delay When will that day-star, mildly springing, Warm our Isle with peace and love? When will Heaven, its sweet bell ringing, Call my spirit to the fields above? At last, while she stood gazing in despair over the waste of waters, she saw her brothers swimming from different directions towards the rock. They came to her one by one, and she welcomed them joyfully: and she placed Aed under the feathers of her breast, and Ficra and Conn under her wings, and said to them:--"My dear brothers, though ye may think last night very bad, we shall have many like it from this time forth." So they continued for a long time on the Sea of Moyle, suffering hardships of every kind, till one winter night came upon them, of great wind and of snow and frost so severe, that nothing they ever before suffered could be compared to the misery of that night. The swans remained on Carricknarone, and their feet and their wings were frozen to the icy surface, so that they had to strive hard to move from their places in the morning; and they left the skin of their feet, the quills of their wings, and the feathers of their breasts clinging to the rock. "Sad is our condition this night, my beloved brothers," said Finola, "for we are forbidden to leave the Sea of Moyle; and yet we cannot bear the salt water, for when it enters our wounds, I fear we shall die of pain." And she uttered these words-- Our life is a life of woe; No shelter or rest we find: How bitterly drives the snow; How cold is this wintry wind! From the icy spray of the sea, From the wind of the bleak north-east, I shelter my brothers three, Under my wings and breast. The witch-lady sent us here, And misery well we know:-- In cold and hunger and fear; Our life is a life of woe![36-1] [36-1] Short Irish poems often began and ended in the same words, as seen in the above translation. They were, however, forced to swim out on the stream of Moyle, all wounded and torn as they were; for though the brine was sharp and bitter, they were not able to avoid it. They stayed as near the coast as they could, till after a long time the feathers of their breasts and wings grew again, and their wounds were healed.