Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

Book VIII.] T E M O R A. 18S
* Then (tIio;i;:;li thou now art but a vap'ry blast)
* Shall lie thy niii^hty deeds to mind recall.'
The spear he then surrender'd to my hand, 305
And rais'd, at once, a stone on high, to speak,
With its gray head of moss, to future times.
Beneath, in earth, he plac'd a sword, and from
His shield one gleaming boss. Awhile, in thought
He darkly bends: at length, came forth his words : 310
* When thou, O stone, at last shall moulder down,
* And lose thyst'lf amidst the moss of years;
* Then shall the silent, wand'ring trav'iler come,
* And whistling pass away. That martial fame
* Once on Moi-lena shone, O wand'rer weak, 315
* By thee is npt pereeiv'd. Fingal his spear
* Here, after the last of his dark fields, resign'd.
* Pass on, thou empty shade ; for, in thy voice
* Renown there is not. — By some peaceful stream
* Is thy abode. — Yet a few, fleeting years 320
* And thou art gone. Thou dweller in thick mist,
* Thee none remembers. But a beam of light
* Fingal with fame to other times shall shine:
* For he, to save the weak in arms, went forth
* In echoing steel amongst the strong in war.' 325^
To Lubar's sounding oak, where from its rock
Above the lucid-tumbling stream it bent;
Bright'ning in fame, most stately strode the king. »
Beneath it is a narrow plain, where sounds >
The fountain of the rock. Here, on the -wind 330
Its waving wreaths great Morven's standard pour'd
Conspicuois, marking Ferad-artho's path
From his secreted vale of lone retreat.
Bright, from his parted west, the sui> of.heav'n
Vol. II, A a