An Te Mu Dheireadh De Threubh a Chaidh a Bith

Sat all alone beside that muttering shoreline he busied Himself, diligently, and sewed. And whilst sewing, sang, in a redundant tongue, Tales of an unforgiving sea...for in him resided the only Remaining refuge of the old fathers songs; But then he had been sired from the loins of a rarer kind... The last native of a vanished tribe. Bowed, pale blue mountains in mourning behind, The forlorn mists slowly gathering below; Unintelligible utterances from weeping seabirds, those Shrill, demented cries Resonating across the marooned, windless bay; plunging Down, the abrupt outline of towering cliffsides; And in his voice a great sorrow...that which only the Truly forsaken could ever possibly know. Now just abandoned longboats lying beached above the High-water mark; white sands And white pebbles still washed by lulling tides; Sometimes, from out of this little cove, a troubling breeze; And carrying on this breeze, faint sounds of muted, Despairing sighs. For it is the longboats that sigh. They sigh for the Passing of well schooled and patient hands.