Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

Bock FIJI. AN EPIC FOEJ.f. 7
Be the warriors * remembered in peace j
when echoinj^ fiiields are heard no more.
Bend, then, in grief, over the flood, where
blows the mountain breeze. Let them pafs
on thy ibid, the blue-eyed dwellers of the
tomb. But Erin rolls to war ; wicje-tumb-
lincT, rough, and dark. Lift, Oflian, lift
the Ihield. I arn slone, my fon I"
* Malvina is fuppofed to fpeak the ioUowing fo«
liloquy :
" MaKina is like the bow of the {hower, in tl»e
iecret valley of ftreams ; it is brijrht, but the drops
of heaven are roiling on its bitnded light. They
fay that I am fair within my locks, but on my bright-
lief? is the wandering of tears. Darkncfs flies over
my foul, as the dulky wave of the breeze along the
grafs of Lutha. Yet h:ive net the roes failed me,
when 1 moved between the hills. Pleafant, beneath
my white hand, arofe the found of harps. What
then, daughter of Lutha, travels over thy f«5ul, like
the dreary path of a ghoft, along the nightly beam ?
Should the young warrior fall, in the roar of his
trouiiled fields ! Young virgins ©f Lutha arife, call
back the wandering thoughts of Malvina, Awake
the voice of the harp along my echoing vale. Then
ihall my foul come forth, like a light from the gates
of the morn, when clouds are rolled around them»
with their broken fides.
" Dweller of my thoughts by night, whofe form
afcends in troubled fields, why doil thou ftir up my
foul, thou far-diftant fon of the king ? Is that the
*li!p of my love, its dark courfe through the ndgcs
of ocean ? How art thou fo fudden, Ofcar, from
ihe heath of (hields ?"
The reft of this poem conCfts of a dialogue be-
tween Ullin and Malvina, wherein the diftrefs of the
Jitter is carried to the higheft pitch.