J. F. Campbell Collection > Dàn an Deirg agus Tiomna Ghuill (Dargo and Gaul)

— But wliy thus craven is this soul of mine ]
In mourning every sorrow my tears would fail."
We reached the halls of the converging streams;
455 Halls all gloomy and full of woe.
No song of bards nor music of harp is there ;
Nought but the rustling of leaves which the rough
wind wakes.
On the house-top the eagle percheth aloft,
She chooseth it for the place of her nest.
460 " Who may scale the height, or drive away
My brown younglings from their quiet bed V'
Beneath the door the young fawn is crouching,
He looks upward to the pinnacle of the crag.
Cos-uUa lies upon the threshokl ;
465 The sound of Gaul's tread he seems to hear,
And with joy the tear starts from his eye.
But his gi'ief returns, as again he lays him down,
For nought save the young roe doth he descry.
But who may tell the heaviness of Fingal's sons?
470 Slowly they issue forth like the mist,
When its shadow comes in time of rain,
Moving over the rush-grown mead.
The hero of batfcles they see laid low,
And as the ooze of a jutting rock their tears
475 Fingal leans him to an aged pine [descend.
By the wind o'erturned, at the head of the son of
His gray tresses hide his tears ; [Morni ;
In the whistling blast his hoary beard is waving.