Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal > Volume 2

A POEM. 29
tky evening shall be calm, and thy depaj'ture like ailid-
ing light. But the storm has returned ; I bend like an
aged oak. My boughs arc fallen on Selama, and I
tremble in my place. Wiiere art thou, with thy fallen
heroes, O my beloved Truthil ? Thou ans\vered?t not
from thy rushing blast : and the soul of thy father is
sad. But I will be sad no more, Cairbar or Colla must
fall. I feel the returning strength of my arm. My
he;ut leaps at the sound of battle."
_ The hero drew his sword. The gleaming blades of
his people rose. They moved along the plain. Their
grey hair streamed in the wind. Cairbar sat at the
least, in the silent plain of Lona'^, He saw the coming
of heroes, and he called his chiefs to battle. Why^
Fhould I tell to Nathos, how die strife of battle grew -
1 have seen thee in the midst of thousands, like the
beam of heaven's fire : it is beautiful, but terrible ; the
people fall in its red course. The spear of Colla slev/,
for he remembered the battles of his youth. An ar-
row came with its sound, and pierced the hero's side."
He fell an his echoing shield. Mv soul started with fear,
I stretched my buckler over him ; but my heaving
breast was seen. Cairbar came, v/ith his spear, and he
beheld Selaraa's maid: joy rose on his dark-brown face :
he stayed the lifted steel. He raised the tomb of Colla ;
and brought me weeping to Selama. He spoke the
g*eat ha'I, whsre the tribe feasted, upon joyful occasions. He v,-cs
afterwards never to appear in battle ; and tUij stage of life was call-
ed ' the time of tixing of the arm?.'
n Lona, ' a marshy plain.' It was the custom, in the days of
Ossian, to f.'ast after a victory. CairUar fi.iJ just provided an enter-
tainment for his army upon tlie defeat of Tnithil, the son of Coila,
and the rest of the party of Cormac, v. hen Colla and his aged warri-
ors arrived to ^ive him battle.
o The poctavoiiJs tliedeicriptionof thcbattleofLona, as it wouI4
he improper in the mouth of a woman, and could have norhinj; nev;,
ziicT the numerous descriptions, of that kind, in his other pciemj. He.
at the same time, gives an r;'portunicy tu Dar tLuU tg pa^s a hua
coinpUuient on Jitr lover.
C 3