"It is time for us to leave this place, for our period here has come to an end." The hour has come; the hour has come; Three hundred years have passed: We leave this bleak and gloomy home, And we fly to the west at last! We leave for ever the stream of Moyle; On the clear, cold wind we go; Three hundred years round Glora's Isle, Where wintry tempests blow! No sheltered home, no place of rest, From the tempest's angry blast: Fly, brothers, fly, to the distant west, For the hour has come at last! So the swans left the Sea of Moyle, and flew westward, till they reached the sea round the Isle of Glora. There they remained for three hundred years, suffering much from storm and cold, and in nothing better off than they were on the Sea of Moyle. Towards the end of that time, St. Patrick came to Erin with the pure faith; and St. Kemoc, one of his companions, came to Inish 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 the three sons of Lir trembled with fear, for the sound was strange and dreadful to them. But Finola knew well what it was; and she soothed them and said:--"My dear brothers, this is the voice of the Christian bell: and now the end of our suffering is near: for this bell is the signal that we shall soon be freed from our spell, and released from our life of suffering; for God has willed it." And when the bell ceased she chanted this lay-- Listen, ye swans, to the voice of the bell, The sweet bell we've dreamed of for many a year; Its tones floating by on the night breezes, tell That the end of our long life of sorrow is near! Listen, ye swans, to the heavenly strain; 'Tis the anchoret tolling his soft matin bell: He has come to release us, from sorrow, from pain, From the cold and tempestuous shores where we dwell! Trust in the glorious Lord of the sky; He will free us from Eva's druidical spell: Be thankful and glad, for our freedom is nigh, And listen with joy to the voice of the bell! "Let us sing our music now," said Finola. And they chanted a low, sweet, plaintive strain of fairy music, to praise and thank the great high King of heaven and earth. Kemoc heard the music from where he stood; and he listened with great astonishment. And he came and spoke to the swans, and asked them were they the children of Lir. They replied, "We are indeed the children of Lir, who were changed long ago into swans by the spells of the witch-lady."