Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 2

Book IV. An EPIC POEM. 93
Such were the dreams of the maid, when
Catlimor of Atha came. He faw her fair face
before him, in the midft of her wandering locks.
He knew the maid of Lumon. What Ihould
Cathmor do ? His fighs arife. His tears come
down. But ftraight he turns away. '* This is
no time, king of Atha, to awake thy fecret foul.
The battle is rolled before thee, like a troubled
ft ream."
He ftruck that warning bofs *, wherein dwelt
the voice of war. Erin rofc around him, like the
found of eagle- wing. Sul-malla ftarted from
deep, in her difordered locks. Slie feized the
helmet from earth. She trembled in her place.
** Why Ihould they know in Erin of the daugh-
ter of Inis-huna ?" She remembered the race of
kings. The pride of her foul arofe ! Her fteps
are behind a rock, by the blue-winding ftream "f*
of a vale : where dwelt the dark-brown hind ere
yet the war arofe. Thither came the voice of
Cathmor, at times, to Sul-malla's ear. Her
• In order to underftand this palTage, it is necefTary to look
to the defcription ofCathmor's Ihield in the feventh book.
This fhield had feven principal bofles, the found of each of
which, when ftruck with a fpear, conveyed a particular order
from the king to his tribes. The found of one of them, as
here, was the fignal for the army to affemble.
t This was not the valley of Lona to which Sul-malla after-
wards retired.
foul