Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

£ooJ^ Fill, AN EPIC POEM. 1 1
ed the hofls ! Now Fingal ; now Cathraor
came abroad. The dark tumbling of death
is before them : the gleam of broken fteel
is rolled on their fteps, as, loud, the high-
bounding kings hewed down the ridge of
fhields.
Maronnan fell, by Fingal, laid large a-
crofs a ftream. The waters gathered by
his fide, and leapt grey over his boffy
iliield. Clonar is pierced by Cathmor ; nor
yet lay the chief on earth. An oak feized
his hair in his fall. His helmet rolled on
the ground. By Its thong, hung his broad
fhield ; over it wandered his ftreaming
blood. Tla-min * ftiall weep, in the hall,
and ftrike her heaving breaft.
* Tla-min, mildly /of t. The loves of Clonar and
TIamin were rendered famous in the north, by a
fr3g:tt.ent of a lyric poem. It is a dialogue between
Clonar and TIamin, She begins with a foiiloquy
which he overhears.
TLAMIN.
" donor, fon of Conglas of I-mor, young hunter
of dun-fided roes I where art thou laid, amidft rulh-
es, beneath the paffing wing of the breeze ? I be-
hold thee, my love, in the plain of thy own dark
llreanis! The clung thorn is rolled by the wind, and
ruftles along his fhield. Bright in his locks he Hes:
the thoughts of his dreams fly. darkening, over his
face. Thou thinkeft of the battles of Offian, young
fen of the echoing iflc !
" Half hid in the grove, 1 fit down. Fly back,
ye mifts of the hill. Why Ihould ye hide her Icvs
from the blue eyes of TIamin of harps ?