Blair Collection > Galic antiquities

iCo GAUL:
his flieath. Then had we not wondered, that night, to fee the king
half-rlfing from the feafl, and looking to his fliield. " I thought,"
he faid, " the Hght fpear of a ghofl had touched its bofs ; but it
was only the paffing breeze."
Ghost of Morni ! why didfl thou not flrike it louder again;
or pour thy knowledge on the dream of our refl ? Why didfl thovi
not come to OfTian, and fay, " Awake, be thy path again on the
wave of the deep." — But thou hadfl been flying in hafle to Ifrona,
to mourn over the fall of thy fon.
Morning arofe on Striimon. Evirchoma awoke from her
troubled dreams. She heard the found of the chace on Morven,
and wondered no voice of Gavil was there. She liftens ; but the
rock does not echo to his cry. The groves of Strximon hear only
the fighs of the fair.
Evening comes ; but no dark fliip is feen, light-bounding over
the deep. The foul of Evirchoma is mournful.
" What detains my hero in the ifle of Ifrona ? Why, my love,
art thou not returned with Morven's chiefs ? Thou haft perhaps
miiTed them on the deep. But yet thou mighteft have ere now re-
turned. How long fliall thy Evirchoma bend from the rock of waves ?
How long fhall the tear wander, like a ftream in mift, upon her
cheek ? — Is the child of our love forgot ? If notj where are the
wonted fmiles of his father ? The tears of Ogal * defcend with
mine ; and his fighs to mine reply. O that his father heard him'
as,
* Ogal, " young Gaul." In thofe times cuftoms of the ancient Caledonians, had
men did not receive their proper names a happy tendency to infpire their youth
till they had diftinguinied themfelves hy with the love of virtue and bravery; the
fome renowned adlion, or difcovered only avenue to that immortality of fame
fome peculiar charafteriflic in their per- of which they were always fo ambiti-
fon or behaviour. This, like all the other ous.