Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

Book II.] FINGAL. 31
His pallid face bcam'd as the scttins; moon,
And mountain-clouds his sable vesture form'd.
Like two decaying flames his eyes appear'd,
And dark the wound of his once glitt'ring breast.
* Crugal,' said mighty Connal, * Dudgul's son, 15
* Fam'd on the hill of deer, why pale and sad,
* Thou breaker of the shields ? Thy sanguine face
* The blood could ne'er forsake through cow'rdly fear.
* Son of the hill, say what disturbs thy rest V
Dim, and in briny tears o'crwhclm'd he stood ; 2l>
And o'er the hero stretch'd his bloodless hand.
His feeble voice then he with faintncss rais'd,
As blows the breeze o'er Lego's reedy lake.
* Connal, my ghost rests on my native hills ;
* But Uliin's sands contain my lif,-lc;^s corpse. 25'
' Never again with Crugal shalt thou talk,
' Or trace his lonely footsteps on the heath.
* Light as the breeze, that skims o'er Cromla'a hills,
* Or rolls the shady mist, I fleetly glide. —
* Connal ! I see the sable cloud of death ! SO
' It hovers, Colgar's son, on Lena's plains !
' Green Erin's sons ai^surecily shall fall I
' Be thou far distant from the held of ghosts.' — .
So spake the ghost, and like the darkcn'd moon.
Amidst the whistling blast be dim retlr'd. 35
* My dark-red friend, stay,' said great Connal, ' stay,
* Bleak Cromla's son, put olY that beam of heav'n.
* Sav, in what lonely cave is thine abode ;
* Or, what green-headed hill supplies thy rest ?
* \\ hen from the desert drear the sons of wind, 40
* Forth issuing fecblv, ride upoi;i the blast.,-