Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

•124 '■^^ DEATH OF CU C H U L L I N :
Bragela calls in vain. Night comes rolling down : the
face of ocean fails. The heath-cock's head is beneath his
wing : the hiqd lleeps with the hart of the defart. They
Ihall rife with the morning's light, and feed on the moify
flream. But my tears return with the fun, my fighs come
on with the night. When wilt thou come in thine arms,
O chief of molTy Tura ?"
Pleafant is thy voice in Oilian's ear, daughter of car-
borne Sorglan ? But retire to the hall of fiiells ; to the
beam of the burning oak. Attend to the murmur of the
fea : it roils at Dunfcaich's walls : let fleep defcend on thy
blue eyes, and the hero come to thy dreams.
CuchullJn fits at Lego's lake, at the dark rolling of
waters. Night is around the her6 ; and his thoufancis
fpread on the heath : a hundred oaks burn in the midll,
the feaft of ilieils is fmoking wade. Carril ftrikes the
harp, beneath a tree ; his gray locks glitter in the beam ;
the ruilling blaft of night is near, and lifts his aged hair.
His fong is of the blue Togorma, and of its chief, Cuchul-
lin's friend. '' Why art thou abfent, Connal, in the day
of the gloomy llorm ? The chiefs of the foutli have con-
vened againft the car-borne Gormac : the winds detain
thy fails, and thy blue waters roll around thee. But
Cormac is not alcne : the fon of Semo fights his battles.
Semo's fon his battles fights I the terror of the llranger I
he that is like the vapour of death, flowly borne by ful-
try winds. 1 he fun reddens in its prefencc, the people
fall around."
Such was the fong of Carril, when a fon of the foe ap-
peared ; he threw down his pointlefs fpear, andfpoke the
words of Torlath, Torlath the chief of heroes, from Le-
go's fable furge : he that led his thoufands to battle,
againft car-borne Cormac, Cormac, who was diftant far,
in Temora's* echoing halls : he learned to bend the bow
of his fathers ; and to lift the fpear. Nor long didft thou
lift the fpear, mildly-lhining beam of youth I death ftands
dim behind thee, like the darkened half of the moon be-
hind its growing light. Cuchulhn rofe before the bardf ,
that
• The royal palace of the Irifli kings; Teamhrath according to fome of the bards.
f The bards wt-re the heralds of ancient times; and their perlbns were i'acred
en account of their office. In later times they abufed that privilege; and as their
perfons were inviolable, they faiyriled and lampooned lb freejy thofe who were