Blair Collection > Galic antiquities

A POEM. 299
was not my foul allowed to fly with the lovely beam of light ? Come
back to my dreams, O Rofcana ; thou art a beam of light, when
all is dark around !"
Chief of I-una, thou hafl raifed the tomb of my love! If no
herb of the mountain can heal thy wounds, thy gray ftone and
thy fame fhall rife on Morven. — Rofcana ! hafl thou pined for me ?
Young tree of Moi-ura, are all thy green branches withered ? — <
The wars of Fingal called me ; I fent the fcout ; but neither his
fliiff nor he have fince been feen. In the morning, my firft look
was on the deep ; and in the evening the lafl; call of my eye was
on the main. Through night, my head leaned over the rock ; but
I beheld Rofcana only in my dream. Chief of I-una ! — but thy
voice has failed. Thy face, amidft moon-beams, is pale : thy eyes
are flames that are dead. Friend of my Rofcana ! thy tomb fliall
rife.
Like the fall of a lofty oak in the calm gathering of night, when
the woods and rocks fliake with the found, the fliield of the king
again is heard. It calls his people together. We bend on our
fpears with the flieps of fpeed ; our way is by the tomb of Cu-
rach. — Who mourns in filence on its green turf ? he heeds not ei-
ther the fliield of the king, or the gray dawn of the morning. It
is Cofl"agalla. He miflTed his maflier at home. His ears are iip, up-
on his rock : he fnuffs the wind in all its points : he turns to every
breeze that fliakes the tufted grafs ; but his mafl;cr is not there. No
ruftUng leaf, no fparrow's wing in the wood, ftirs xmobferved by
Cofl^agalla. But Curach is not come. He feeks his fl:eps in the
battle. He finds his hand on the edge of the ftream : the foam a-
round it is fl:ained with blood. Mournful he bears it with him,
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