ims to the birds and beasts of prey; and these,
in their turn, died of hunger in the famine-stricken forests.

"I searched all day: the mice and rats and hedgehogs
Seemed to be dead, and I could hardly hear
A wing moving in all the famished woods."[16]

Distress of the Peasants

A cry of bitter agony and lamentation rose from the starving Isle of
Saints to the gates of Heaven, and fell back unheard; the sky was hard
as brass above and the earth was barren beneath, and men and women
died in despair, their shrivelled lips still stained green by the
dried grass and twigs they had striven to eat.

"I passed by Margaret Nolan's: for nine days
Her mouth was green with dock and dandelion;
And now they wake her."

The Misery Increases

In vain the High King of Ireland proclaimed a universal peace, and
wars between quarrelling tribes stopped and foreign pirates ceased to
molest the land, and chief met chief in the common bond of misery; in
vain the rich gave freely of their wealth--soon there was no
distinction between rich and poor, high and low, chief and vassal, for
all alike felt the grip of famine, all died by the same terrible
hunger. Soon many of the great monasteries lay desolate, their stores
exhausted, their portals open, while the brethren, dead within, had
none to bury them; the lonely hermits died in their little
beehive-shaped cells, or fled from the dreadful solitude to gather in
some wealthy abbey which could still feed its monks; and isle and vale
which had echoed their holy chants knew the sounds no more. Over all,
unlifting, unchanging, brooded the deadly vapour, bearing the plague
in its heavy folds, and filling the air with a sultry lurid haze.

"There is no sign of change--day copies day,
Green things are dead--the cattle too are dead
Or dying--and on all the vapour hangs
And fattens with disease, and glows with heat."

Cathleen Heartbroken for her People

Round the castle of the Countess Cathleen there was great stir and
bustle, for her tender heart was wrung with the misery of her people,
and her prayers for them ascended to God unceasingly. So thin she grew
and so worn that the physicians bade her servants bring harp and song
to charm away the sadness that weighed upon her spirit; but all in
vain! Neither the well-loved legends of the ancient gods, nor her
harp, nor the voice of her bards could bring her relief--nothing but
the attempt to save he