* * * * *
There is no strength in my hands to-night, there is no power within me;
it is no wonder I to be sorowful, being thrown down in the sorrow of old
age.
Everything is a grief to me beyond any other man on the face of the
earth, to be dragging stones along to the church and the hill of the
priests.
I have a little story of our people. One time Finn had a mind to make a
dun on the bald hill of Cuailgne, and he put it on the Fianna of Ireland
to bring stones for building it; a third on the sons of Morna, a third
on myself, and a third on the sons of Baiscne.
I gave an answer to Finn, son of Cumhal; I said I would be under his
sway no longer, and that I would obey him no more.
When Finn heard that, he was silent a long time, the man without a He,
without fear. And he said to me then: "You yourself will be dragging
stones before your death comes to you."
I rose up then with anger on me, and there followed me the fourth of the
brave battalions of the Fianna. I gave my own judgments, there were many
of the Fianna with me.
Now my strength is gone from me, I that was adviser to the Fianna; my
whole body is tired to-night, my hands, my feet, and my head, tired,
tired, tired.
It is bad the way I am after Finn of the Fianna; since he is gone away,
every good is behind me.
Without great people, without mannerly ways; it is sorrowful I am after
our king that is gone.
I am a shaking tree, my leaves gone from me; an empty nut, a horse
without a bridle; a people without a dwelling-place, I Oisin, son of
Finn.
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