Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

I TEMORA : Book Fill.
by the fongs of an hundred bards. The poem clofcs
w ith a fpecch of Fingal.
As when the wintry winds have fcized
the waves of the mountain-lake, have leiz-
ed them, in ftorray night, and clothed
them over with ice ; white, to the hunter's
early eye, the billows feem to roll. He
turns his ear to the found of each unequal
ridge. But each is filent, gleaming, Hrewn
with boughs and tufts of grafs, which
iliake and whilile to the wind, over their
grey feats of froft. So filent (hone to the
morning the ridges of Morven's hoft, as
each warrior looked up from his helmet
towards the hill of the king ; the cloud-
covered hill of Fingal, where he fttode, in
the folds of mid. At times is the hero
feen, greatly dim in all his arms. From
thought to thought rolled the war, along
his mighty foul.
Now is the coming forth of the king,
rirfl. appeared the fvvord of Luno ; the fpear
half iffuing from a cloud, the flueld Hill
dim in mill. But when the flride of the
king came abroad, with all his grey, dewy
locks in the wind •, then rofe the ftiouts of
his hoft over every moving tribe. They
gathered, gleaming, round, with all their
echoing fhields. So rife the green feas
round a fpirit, that comes down from the