Blair Collection > Galic antiquities

A POEM. 155
gal was ftruck. This bofs % had then another found. The he-
roes heard its voice, Hke thvuider on the diflant heath j and they
ruflied with joy from all their flreams. Gaul heard it ; but the
water of Strumon rolled its flood, and who could crofs its mighty
tide ?
We failed to Ifrona : we fought ; and recovered the fpoil of our
land. Why didft thou not wait at thy molfy ftream till we return-
ed, thou lifter of the blue Ihield ! Why, fon of Morni, was thy
foul fo impatient for the battle ? — But thovi wouldft not lofe thy
fhare in any field of fame. Gaul prepared his fliip, light rider
of the foamy wave, and fpread his fails to the firfl ray that ftreak-
ed the clouds of the eaft. He followed to Ifrona the path of the
king.
But who is that on the fea-beat rock, fad as the gray mill of
the morning? Her dark hair floats, carelefs, on the ftream of
winds ; her white hand is around it, like the foam of floods. Two
dewy drops ftart into her eyes as they are fixed on the fliip of
Gaul ; and on her breaft hangs, in the midft of his fmiles, her
child. She hums in his ear a fong. Sighing, flie ftops fliort. She
has forgot what it was. Thy thoughts, Evirchoma, are not of the
fong : they fall, along with thy love, on the deep. The lefTened
{hip is half in view. A low-failing cloud now fpreads its flcirt be-
tween, and hides it like a dark rock in the pafling mift. " Safe be
thy courfe, rider of the foamy deep ; when, my love, fliall I again
behold thee !"
U 2 E-
% The bofs of FIngal's flileld, found was the ufual mode of giving the alarm
juft now in the ruins of his palace. The or challenge to battle among the Galedc»
Beim-fgeithe, or " ftriking the fliield," nians-