Blair Collection > Galic antiquities

156 GAUL:
Evirchoma * returns to Strumon's halls ; but her fleps are flow,
and her face is fad. She is like a lonely ghofl in a calm, when he
walks in the mill of the pool, and the wind of hills is filent. Of-
ten fhe looks back, in the midft of her fighs, and turns her tearful
eye towards Ocean. " Safe be thy courfe, rider of the foamy deep;
when Ihall I again behold thee !"
Night with all her murky darknefs met the fon of Morni in the
midll of his courfe. The dim moon hid herfelf in the caves of
clouds, and no flar looked out from the windows of the flcy.
His bark in filence rides the deep : and, in our courfe, we mifs the
chief, as homeward we bound to Morven.
Ifrona hides itfelf in the morning naifl. The ftep of Gaul is
carelefs on its fliore : he wonders he does not hear the roar of
battle. He ftrikes his fliield, that his friends may know of his
coming. " Does Fingal," he fays, " fleep; and the battle unfought?
Heroes of Morven, are you here?"
O THAT we had ! Then had this fpear defended thee from the
foe ; or low had its owner fallen. No hannlefs ftafi^ the prop of
tottering years, was then Temora's fpear. It was the lightning
that overturns the lofty trees in its red-winged courfe, when the
inountains tremble before it, Offian was then no blafled tree that
ftands alone on the heath, llaaking before every breeze, and half-
bent over the ftream by wintry florms. No ; I flood like the pine
of Cona, with all my green branches about me, fmiling at the
Ilorm, of heaven, and tolling themfelves with joy in the roar of
winds.
* Mbhir-chaomhay " mild and ftately," 3d book of Temora, and fomc other ofOf-
the wife of G.iul, and daughter of Cafdu- ''^n's poems.
ioiiglas. Mention is made of her in the i " *'^~