J. F. Campbell Collection > Report of the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland, appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of the poems of Ossian

74 REPORT ON THE
This ' Addrefs to the Sun in CarthorC the Com-
mittee was the more folicitous to procure, and to
lay before the Society, becaufe it was one which
fome of the oppofers of the authenticity of Offian's
poems had quoted as^ evidently fpurious, betraying
the moft convincing marks of its being a clofe imi-
tation of the addrefs to the fun in Milton.
The Committee will quote another extraft from
this publication of Dr Smith's, which exhibits a ten-
dernefs of a different kind. It is part of the lamen-
tation of Graine, on the death of her lover Dargo,
fuppofed by her to have been killed by a boar.
Mar
comeft forth in thy awful beauty ; the ftars hide themfelves in the
flcy ; the moon, cold and pale, finks in the weftern wave. But
thou thyfelf moveft alone ; who can be a companion of thy courfe?
The oaks of the mountains fall ; the mountains themfelves decay
with years ; the ocean fhrinks and grows again ; the moon her-
felf is loft in heaven : but thou art for ever the fame ; rejoicing in
the brightnefs of thy courfe. When the world is dark with tem-
pefts ; when thunder rolls, and lightning flies ; thou lookeft in
thy beauty from the clouds, and laugheft at the ftorm. But to
Offian, thou lookeft in vain ; for he beholds thy beams no more ;
whether thy yellow hair flows on the eaftern clouds, or thou trem-
bleft at the gates of the weft. But thou art perhaps, like me,
for a feafon ; thy years will have an end. Thou flialt fleep in thy
clouds, carelefs of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O fun,
in the ftrength of thy youth ! Age is dark and unlovely ; it is
like the glimmering hght of the moos, when it fliines through
broken clouds, and the niift is on the hills ; the blaft of north is
on the plain, the traveller flirinks in the midft of his journey.
Macpherf. Trcaif.