Though Cormac's hundred bards were there to give
the fight to song, feeble was the voice of a hundred bards to
send the deaths to future times. For many were the deaths of
heroes; wide poured the blood of the brave."
Then above the clang and clamor of dreadful battle we hear the
mournful dirge of minstrels wailing o'er the dead.
"Mourn, ye sons of song, mourn! Weep on the rocks of roaring
winds, O mad of Inistore! Bend thy fair head over the waves,
thou lovelier than the ghost of the hills, when it moves, in a
sunbeam at noon, over the silence of Morven. He is fallen! thy
youth is low! pale beneath the sword of Cathullin. No more shall
valor raise thy love to match the blood of kings. His gray dogs
are howling at home, they see his passing ghost. His bow is in
the hall unstrung. No sound is on the hill of his hinds."
Then once again, the louder for the mourning pause, we hear the
din of battle.
"As roll a thousand waves to the rocks, so Swaran's host came on.
As meets a rock a thousand waves, so Erin met Swaran of spears.
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