Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

JSook VI. AN EPIC POEM. 265
that cloud efcape, that quenched our early beam ? Kin-
dle jour meteors, my fathers, to light my daring fteps.
I will conkmie in wrath.* Should I not return! the king
is without a fon, gray-haired amidil his foes. His arm
is not as in the days of old : his fame grows dim. in Erin.
.Let me not behold him from high, laid low in his latter
field. But can 1 return to the king ? Will he not aik a
bout his fon ? " Thou oughteft to defend young Fillan."
I will meet the foe. Green Inisfail, thy founding tread
is pleadmt to my ear : I rufh on thy ridgy ho(l, to fhun
the eyes of Fingal. I hear the voice of the king, on Mo-
ra's milly top ! He calls his two fons ; I come, my father,
in my grief. I come like an eagle, which the flame of
night met in the defart, and fpoiled of half his wings."
Dillant, f round the king, on Mora, the broken ridges
of Morven are rolled. They turned their eyes : each
darkly bends, on his own alhen fpear. Silent ilood the
king in the midf]:. Thought on thought rolled over his
foul. As waves on a fecret mountain lake, each with its
back of foam. He looked ; no fon appeared, with his
long-beaming fpear. The fighs rofe, crowding from his
foul ; but he concealed his grief. At length 1 ilood be-
neath an oak. No voice of mine was heard. What could I
iliy to Fingal in his hour of woe? His words rofe, at length,
jij the midll : the people fhrunk backward as he fpokc:}:.
L 1 where
• Here the fentence is defignedly left unfiniftied by rfie poet. The Tenfe is, that
he 'vvas relblved, like a deftroying fire, to confume Cathmor, who had killed his
brother. In the midft of this relolution, the fituation of Fingal fuggefts itfelf to
him, in a very flrong light. He refolves to return to affift the king in profecut-
ing the war. But then his fliame for not defending his brother, recurs to him.
He is determined again to go and find out Cafhn^or. We may confider hun, as
in the aft of advancing towards the enemy, when the horn rf Fingal founded on
Mnra, and called back his people to his prefence. This foliloquy is natural : the
rcfolutions which fo fuddenly follow one another, are expreffive of a mind ex-
tremely agitated with fbrrow and confcious Ihame ; yet the behaviour of OlTIan,
in his execution of the commands of Fingal, is fo irrcprehenfible, that it is not cafy
todatermine where he failed in his duty. The truth is, that when menfail in defigns
which they ardently with to accompliih, they naturally blame themfelves, as the
chief caufe of their difippointment.
t This fcene is folcmn. The poet always places his chief character amidil ob-
jefls which favour the fublime. The face of the country, the night, the broken
remains of a defeated army, and, above all, the attitude and filence of Fingal
himfelf, are circumflances calcidated to imprefs, an awful idea on the mind. Of-
fian is moft fuccefsful in his night defcriptions. Dark images fuited the melan-
choly temper of his mind. His poems were all compofed after the atlive part of
his life was over, when he was blind, and had furvived all the companions of his
youth . we therefore find a veil of melancholy thrown over the whole.
\ The abafhed behaviour of" the army of Fingal proceeds rather from (hame
than f^ar. The king was not of a tyrannical difpohtion : He, as he profeffes him-
felf