Ossian Collection > Gaelic bards

OSSIANIC POETRY. 195
A breeze that riisliing down the hill
Would strip the blooming heather,
Or, rustling through tlie green-clad grove,
Would whirl its leaves together.
But when it seized the aged saugh,
AVith the light locks of grey,
It tore away its ancient root,
And there the old trunk lay !
It raised the thatch too from the roof,
And scattered it along ;
Then tossing it throughout the air.
Singing a pleasant song.
It heaped the ruins on the land,
Though sire and son stood by
They could no help afibrd, but gaze
With wan and troubled eye !
A flap, a flash, the green roll dashed.
And laughed against the red :
Upon our boards, now here, now there
It knocked its foamy head.
The dun bowed whelk in the abyss,
As on the galley bore.
Gave a tap upon her gunwale
And a slap upon her floor.
She could have split a slender straw —
So clean and well she went —
As still obedient to the helm
Her stately course she bent.
We watched the big beast eat the small —
The small beast nimbly fly,