For three long years he pined so for Etain. His lips were chapped, his feet were bruised and sore. His beard grew long. So hoary was his mane! His arms waxed strong and yet his body waned So lean. Who would have thought he once was King? Yet with his harp he sang a sad refrain And through the vales his echoed cries did ring    And often on the moor the beasts could hear him sing:    So 'lone is the stranger    Away from his homeland.    So sad is the shipwrecked,    The castaway clinging.    So silent the stillborn    Adrift in the womb's sea.          A sailor, an exile,    I sought a new country    Till ocean and heaven    Above and below me    In deluge did battle    And left me for flotsam.    So cold was the water!    It pierced till it numbed me.    So swift was the current    That pulled and embraced me.    So fierce were the brine waves    That tasted like tear drops.          If I had been washed up    To wake on the shore of    The Isle of Dead Heroes,    The Kingdom of Hades,    I'd rest with the valiant,    Share tales and libations.    But death did not take me,    Instead I was stranded    To weep with the living,    Who battered by sorrows    Still gasp, though despairing,    And thrash in misfortune.          If I long for silence    Why still does my heart beat?    If I wish for darkness    Why still do my eyes see?    If I'm bound for dying    Why still do my wounds heal?     I don't mourn for infants    At rest from life's labors.    I don't cry for sailors    Who sway 'neath the ocean.    I sigh for the exile    Who lingers untaken. xxvii Just so he'd chant at night to stay awake. But strange things happened when he played and sighed. He often saw how trees would bend, a snake Or wolf approaching from afar who tried To hide unseen. Wild birds on boughs he spied Who huddled close to hear the harp's sweet sound. And though near him they never would abide When he had stopped his song, he often found    Dried berries, grass and acorns lying on the ground. xxviii      And so in time his harping brought relief. Yet still he sighed and never did he sing A song that was not born out of his grief. One day it chanced when gazing in a spring He spied above his head a jet-black wing Hid in a bough. He jumped! But upward fled The raven. Still he chased the evil thing Till falling on a rock he hit his head.    Who knows how many days he lay there almost dead!