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

OF PASSAGES, 215
The choicest son of Erin's king.
I desire the submission of Erin,
Or a shower that wounds shall shed around her.
Though a flood of tears should flow
From the eyelids of high-born virgins ;
Though showers of blood V
Should drop from star-bright èyeS'*.^ -r^
The mourning cry of all her women
Would be heard as the screaming of sea-fowl on the shore."
" Often have mighty heroes demanded,
That Erin's yielded pledge should be sent over sea,
But never was it, nor ever shall it be granted.
Let the shell go round to us.
Let joy beam in each warrior's countenance.
O Bards I raise the strains on high.
Let the people hear the sound of your gladness.
Let rocks and vales at once resound
To the joint melody of voices and instruments *'.
And so let us pass the night
Till morning shine with brightest ray.
* * *
Loud was the nbise along the beach.
As the sound of a wave v/as [the moving of] each tiibe,
Like the rustling of a flock of seafowl to the shore.
[Their sound] was like a thousand streams
son of-Semo. " But, Carril, raise the voice on high ; tell
the deeds of other times. Send thou the night away in song;
and give the joy of grief." lb. p. 236, 238.
The sound spreads wide. The heroes rise, like the
breaking of a blue-rolling wave. — They rose rustling like
a flock of sea-fowl, when the waves expel them from the
shore. Their sound was like a thousand streams that meet
* Many a voice and many a harp in tuneful sounds aros?. Fing. p. 279.
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