Ossian Collection > Fingal

i62 DAR-THULA:
of age comes like the mift of the defart. My fhield is worn \\-ith
years ; my fword is fixed * in its place. I faid to my foul, thy
evening {h?,\\ be calm, and thy departure like a fading light. But
the florm has returned ; I bend like an aged oak. My boughs are
fallen on Sclama, and I tremble in my place. Where art thou,
with thy fallen heroes, O my car-borne Truthil ! Thou anfwerell
not from thy rufhing blaft ; and the foul of thy father is fad. But
I will be fad no more, Cairbar or Colla muft fall. I feel the re-
turning flrength of my arm. My heart leaps at the found of battle.
The hero drew his fword. The gleaming blades of his people
rofe. They moved along the plain. Their gray hair ftreamed in
the wind. — Cairbar fat, at the feaft, in the filent plain of Lona -f-.
He faw the coming of the heroes, and he called his chiefs to battle.
Whv X fhould I tell to Nathos, how the ftrife of battle grew \
I have feen thee, in the midll: of thoufands, like the beam of hea-
ven's fire; it is beautiful, but terrible; the people fall in its red
courfe. The fpear of Colla llew, for he remembered the battles
of his vouth. An arrow came with its found, and pierced the he-
ro's fide. He fell on his ecchoing fliield. My foul ftarted with
* It was the cunom of thofe times, that feat of Truthil the fon of CoDa, and the
every warrior at a certain age, or when he reft of the party of Cormac, when CoI!a
became unfit for the field, fixed his arms, and his aged warriors arrived to give him
in the great hall, where the tribe feafted, battle.
upon joyful occafions. He was afterwards % The poet, by an artifice, avoids the
never to appear in battle ; and this ftage defcription of the battle of Lona, as it
of life was called the lime affixing of the would be improper in the mouth of a wo-
armu man, and could have nothing new, after
t Lona, a marjby plain. It was the cu- the numerous defcriptions, of that kind, in
ftom, in the days of O/lian, to feaft after his other poems. He, at the fame time,
a viiSory. Cairbar had juft provided an gives an opportunity to Dar thula to pafs a
entertainment for his army, upon the dc- fine eompliment on her lover.
fear;