Ossian Collection > Fingal

A POEM. 197
fun-beam fled from the field, and fhe was feen no more. Hear the
fong of Shilric, it is foft but fad.
I SIT by the mofTy fountain; on the top of the hill of winds.
One tree is ruftling above me. Dark waves roll over the heath. The
lake is troubled below. The deer defcend from the hill. No hun-
ter at a diftance is feen ; no whiftling cow-herd is nigh. It is mid-
day : but all is filent. Sad are my thoughts alone. Didft thou but
appear, O my love, a wanderer on the heath ! thy hair floating on
the wind behind thee ; thy bofom heaving on the fight j thine eyes
full of tears for thy friends, whom the mift of the hill had con-
cealed ! Thee I would comfort, my love, and bring thee to thy fa-
ther's houfe.
But is it fhe that there appears, like abeam of light on the
heath ? bright as the inoon in autumn, as the fun in a fummer-
ftorm, Cornell: thou, lovely maid, over rocks, over mountains to me ?
She fpeaks : but how weak her voice ! like the breeze in the
reeds of the pool.
Returnest thou fafe from the war ? Where are thy friends,
my love ? I heard of thy death on the hill -, I heard and mourned
thee, Shilric !
Yes, my fair, I return ^ but I alone of my race. Thou flialt fee
them no more : their graves I raifed on the plain. But why art
thou on the defert hill ? Why on the heath, alone ?
Alone I am, O Shilric ! alone in the winter-houfe. With grief
for thee I expired. Shilric, I am pale in the tomb.
She