Blair Collection > Galic antiquities

A POEM. sot
long, bends his liftening ear. — ' It is Dermid !' he fays ; and ha-
{lens to overtake the fong. — A beam of hght, clear but terrible^
comes acrofs his foul. He makes two unequal ftrides ; in the
midfl of the third he flops. * Dermid is no more !' — He wipes with
the flvirt of his robe his eye ; and, fighing, flowly- walks along. —
It is the voice of the bards thou doft hear, O llranger ; they are
pouring the fame of Dermid on future times ; clothing his name
with the nightly fong. The chief himfelf, in Selma thou flialt find
no more. He fleeps with Graina in the cold and narrow houfe.
On Golbun's heath thou wilt find it, at the fide of the flream of
roes. — A rock, dark-bending with its ivy mantle above, flielters
from florms the place. A mountain- ftream leaps over it, white,
and murmuring travels on. A yew fpreads its dark-green branches
nigh : the deer refls undiflurbed at noon beneath its fliade. The
mariner leaning to his mafl, as he pafTes on the darkly-rolling
wave, points ovit the place, and tells his mates the woful tale. The
tear bedims their eye. They cannot mark the fpot : they heave the
deep note of grief, and fail to the land of flrangers. There, they
tell the tale to liflening crowds around the flame of night. The
virgins weep, and the children of youth are mournful. All day
they remember Dermid and Graina ; and in the dreams of their
reft they are not forgotten."
And often you defcend to the dreams of OfTian too, children of
beauty. Often you pofTefs his thoughts, when he fits, alone, at
your tomb ; and liftens if he may hear the fong of ghofts. At
times, I hear your faint voice in the figh of the breeze, when I refl
beneath your green tree, and hang my harp on its low-bending
C c branch.