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

An epic poem. 73
thou haft paft over hofts, and laid them low in blood ; but who
has heard thy words returning from the field ? The wrathful
delight in death : their remembrance refts on the wounds of their
ipear. Strife is folded in their thoughts : their words are ever
heard. Thy courfe, chief of Moma, was like a troubled ftream.
The dead were rolled on thy path : but others alfo lift the fpear.
We were not feeble behind thee ; but the foe was ftrong.
The king beheld the rifing rage, and bending forward of either
chief: for, half-unfheathed, they held their fwords, and rolled
their filent eyes. — Now would they have mixed in horrid fray, had
not the wrath of Cathmor burned. He drew his fvvord: it gleamed
thro' night, to the high-flaming oak.
Sons of pride, faid the king, allay your fwelling fouls. Retire
in night. — Why fliould my rage arife ? Should I contend with
both in arms It is no time for ftrife. Retire, ye clouds, at my,-,
feaft. Awake my foul no more. — They funk from the king on
either fide; like* two columns of morning mift, when the fun
rifes, between them, on his glittering rocks. Dark is their rolling
on either fide 3 each towards its reedy pool.
behaviour of Foldath. It abounds with poem, juft now in my hands. — " As the
that laconic eloquence, and indire£l man- fun is above the vapours, which his beams
ner of addrefs, which is fo juftly admired have raifed ; fo is the foul of the king
in the fliort fpeech of Ajax, in the ninth above the fons of fear. They roll dark
book of the Iliad. below him ; he rejoices in the robe of his
* The poet could fcarcety find, in all beams. But when feeble deeds wander on
nature, a comparifon fo favourable as this, the foul of the king, he is a darkenpd Cun
to the fuperiority of Cathmor over his two rolled along the flcy : the valley is fad be-
chiefs. I fliall illuftrate this pafTage with low : flowers wither beneath the drops of
another from a fragment of an ancient the night."
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