d wood
Against the door, and burn the hated brood
Of his tormentors one and all. He hewed
An ample pyre, then piled it thick and high,
While the sun, sloping to the western sky,
Proclaimed the closing of that fateful day.
But the doomed women little dreamed that they
Would have such fearsome end ... As Garry lay
Rubbing the firesticks till they 'gan to glow,
He heard a Fian mother singing low--

_Sleep, O sleep, I'll sing to thee--
Moolachie, O moolachie.
Sleep, O sleep, like yon grey stone,
Moolachie, mine own.

Sleep, O sleep, nor sigh nor fret ye,
And the goblins will not get ye,
I will shield ye, I will pet ye--
Moolachie, mine own._

The mother sang, the gentle babe made moan--
And Garry heard them with a heart of stone ...
With fiendish laugh, he saw the leaping flames
Possess the pyre; he heard the shrieking dames,
And maids and children, wailing in the gloom
Of smothering smoke, e'er they had met their doom.
Then when the high stockade was blazing red,
Ere yet their cries were silenced, Garry fled,
And westward o'er the shouldering hills he sped.

VI.

A broad, faint twilight lingered to unfold
The sun's slow-dying beams of tangled gold,
And the long, billowy hills, in gathering shade,
Their naked peaks and ebon crags displayed
Sharp-rimmed against the tender heaven and pale;
And misty shadows gathered in the vale--
When Caoilte to Knockfarrel came, and saw
Amid the dusk, with sorrow and with awe,
The ruins of their winter dwelling laid
In smouldering ashes; while the high stockade
Around the rocky wall, like ragged teeth,
Was crackling o'er the melting stones beneath,
Still darting flame, and flickering in the breeze.

He sped towards the wood, and through the trees
Called loud for those who perished. On his fair
And gentle spouse he called in his despair.
His sweet son, and his sire, whose hair was white
As Wyvis snow, he called for in the night.
Full loud and long across the Strath he cried--
The echoes mocked him from the mountain side.

Ah! when his last hope faded like the wave
Of twilight ebbing o'er the hills, he gave
His heart to utter grief and deep despair;
And the cold stars peer'd down with pitiless stare,
While sank the wind in silence on its flight
Through the dark hollows of the spacious night;
And distant sounds seem'd near. In his dismay
He heard a Fian calling far away.
The night-bird answered back with dism