J. F. Campbell Collection > Temora, an ancient epic poem, in eight books

jS T E M O R A:
The virgins wept, by the ftreams of UlHn. They looked to the
mift of the hill, no hunter defcended from its folds. Silence dark-
ened in the land : blafls fighed lonely on graffy tombs.
Descending like the eagle of heaven, with all his rufHing
wings, when he forfakcs the blafi:, with joy, the fon of Trenmor
came; Conar, arm of death, from Morven of the groves. — He
poured his might along green Erin. Death dimly ftrode behind
his fvvord. The fons of Bolga fled, from his courfe, as from a
ftream, that burfling from the flormy defart, rolls the fields toge-
ther, with all their echoing woods. Crothar * met him in bat-
tle : but Alnecma's warriors fled. The king of Atha flowly re-
tired, in the grief of his foul. He, afterwards, flione in the fouth;
but dim as the fun of Autumn ; when he vifits, in his robes of
mift, Lara of dark ftreams. The withered grafs is covered with
dew : the field, tho' bright, is fad.
Why wakes the bard before me, faid Cathmor, the memory of
thofe who fled- ? Has fome ghoft, from his dufky cloud, bent for-
ward to thine ear ; to frighten Cathmor from the field with the
tales of old ? Dwellers of the folds of night, your voice is but a
* The delicacy of the bard, with re- of futurity. The king thought, that the
gard to Crothar, is remarkable. As he choice of Fonar's fong proceeded, from his
was the anceflor of Cathmor, to whom forefeeing the unfortunate iffue of the war ;
the epifode is addre(I«d, the bard foftens his and th^st his own fate was fhadowed out,
defeat, by only mentioning that his people in that of his anceftor Crothar. The atti-
fed. — Cathmor took the fong of Fonar in tud£ of the bard, after the reprimand of his
an unfavourable light. The bards, being patron, is pidurefque and affefting. We
of the order of the Druids, who pretended admire the fpeech of Cathmor, but Ja-
to a foreknowledge of events, were fup- nient the efteCl it has on the feeling foul
pofed to have fome fuj-crnatural prefcience of the good old poet.
4. blaft