Blair Collection > Galic antiquities

152 GAUL:
Sleep on, and take thy refl, light-bounding Ton of the chace;
OlTian will not dillurb thee. Sleep on, ye fons of toil; the flars
are but running their mid-way courfe, and OiTian alone is awake
on the hills. I love to wander alone, when all is dark and quiet.
The gloom of night accords with the fadnefs of my foul ; nor can
the morning fun, with all his beams, bring day to me.
Spare thy beams then, O fun ! like the king of Morven, thou
art too lavifli of thy bovmty. Doft thou not know thy light, like
his, may one day fail. Spare thy lamps which thou kindleft, by
thoufands, in tliy blue hall above ; when thou thyfelf retireft to
thy repofe, below the dufky gates of the wefl. Why fliould thy
lights fail, and leave thee in thy mournful halls, alone, as his
friends have done to Offian ? Why, mighty beam, fliouldfl tliou
wade them on Morven ; when the heroes have ceafed to behold
them ; when there is no eye to admire their green-fparkling
beauty ?
Morven, how have thy lights failed ! Like the beam of the
oak in thy palaces, they have decayed, and their place is the dwelling
of darknefs. Thy palaces themfelves, likethofe who rejoiced within
them, are fallen on the heath, and the thick fhadow of death fur-
rounds them. Temora is fallen ; Tura is an heap ; and Selma is
filent. The found of their fhells is long lince part. The fong of
their bards and the voice of their harps are over. A green mound
of earth, a mofs-clad flone lifting throvxgh it here and tliere its
gray head, is all that preferves their memory. The mariner be-
holds, no more, their tall heads rifing through clouds, as he bounds
on the deep ; nor the traveller as he comes from the defart,
1 GROPE for Sclma. I Humble on a ruin. Without any form
is