Blair Collection > Galic antiquities

A POEM. 343
Yield I mufl, Lava replied, for my blood is fhed ; the ftream of
my life hath failed. — Sulmina muft be thine. Behind that rock,
in her cave flie refts. She looks down from its door on a blue
ftream, where waves an afpen tree. — Sulmina mxift be thine : but
let her raife my tomb ; for flie was the love of Lava the un-
happy.
He ceafed. He funk on his fhield ; and his people fled. Ron-
nan bade us fpare them in their flight, as, fwift, he afcended the
rock to find the place of his love. — The blue ftream he finds ; and
the cave on its woody bank. Bvit no Sulmina is there. The lone
wdnd founds in the empty womb of the rock. The withered leaf
wanders there, on its ruftling wing ; and no tra(5l is found, but
that of the lonely fox.
" Where art thou, O Sulmina, my love! Doft thou hide thy-
felf from Ronnan ? — Come, Sulmina, from thy fecret place ; come,
my love, it is thy Ronnan calls thee!"
But thou calleft in vain, fon of grief; no one replies to thy
voice, fave the rock and echoing ftream.
At length the howling of his dog is heard, in the field of ftdlen
heroes. Tliither he turns. There he finds Sulmina. She had ruflied
to the battle to aid her Ronnan. But death, on the point of a wan-
dering arrow, came: its barbed head is in her breaft of fnow. The
fparkling light of her eye is become dim ; the rofe of her cheek is
faded.
Ronnan, pale like her own half-breathlefs corfe, falls on her
neck, as drops the ivy when its oak hath failed. Sulmina half-
opens her heavy eyes. The peaceful fliade of death clofes them a-
gain, well pleafed to have feen her Ronnan.
Long