Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

zyz T E M R A : Book VII,
It returned vrith flow-bending eyes : and dark winding
of locks of mift.
It was* dark. The fleeping holl were ftill, 'in the fkirts
of night. The flame decayed, on the hill of Fingal ; the
Jcing lay lonely on his fliield. His eyes were half-clof-
ed in fleep ; the voice of Fillan came. " Sleeps the huf-
"band of Clatho ? Dwells the father of the fallen in reft .^
Am I forgot in the folds of darknefs ; lonely in the feaibn
of dreams ?"
" Why art thou in the midfl of my dreams," faid Fin-
gal, " as, fudden, he rofe I Can 1 forget thee, my fon, or
thy path of fire in the field ? Not fuch, on the foul of the
king, come the deeds of the mighty in arras. They are
jiot there a beam of lightning, which is feen, and is then
no more. I remember thee, O Fillan, and my wrath
begins to rife."
The king took his deathful fpear, and ftruck the deep-
ly-founding fliield : his fliield that hung high on night,
the difmal fign of war I Ghofts fled on every lide, and
rolled their gathered forms on the wind. Thrice from
the winding vale arofe the voices of death. The harps f
of the bards, untouched, found mournful over the hill.
He fl:ruck again the fliield : battles rofe in the dreams
ofhishoft. The wide-tumbling ilrife is gleaming over
their fouls. Blue-fliielded kings defcend to war. Back-
ward-looking armies fly ; and mighty deeds are half-hid,
jn the bright gleams of fteel.
But
' * The night. derci-iptious of OHlan were in bio;h repute among Ricceeding bards.
One of them delivered a fentiment, in a diilich, more favourable to his tafle
for poetry, than to his gallantry towards the ladies. I (liall here give a tranlla-
tlon of it,
" More pleafant to me is the night of Cona, dark-ftreaming from OfTIan 'sharp;
rr.ore pleafant it is to me, than a white -boiomed dweller between my arms : than
a fair-handed daughter of heroes, in the hour of reft."
Though tradition is not very fatisfaiflory concerning the hiflory of this poet, it has
taken care to inform us, that he was very old v/hen lie wrote thp diftiph. He liv-
ed (in what age is uncertain) in one of the vvellern ifles, and his name was Tur-
loch Ciabh-glas, or Tuiloch of the gray locks.
f It was the opinion of the times, that, on the night preceding the death of x
perfon worthy and i-enowned, the harps of thofe bards, who were retained by his
family, emitted melancholy founds. This was attributed, to life Ofllan's expret-
fion, to the light touch of ghofls : who were I'uppofed to have a fore-knowledge of
events. The lame opinion prevailed long in the north, and tl^'» particular found
was called, the nvarniiig 'voice of the dead. The ijnice of deaths, mentioned in the
preceding fentence, was of a difterent kind. Each perfon was fupjx>fed to have
an attendant fpirit, wlio afTumed his form and voice, on the night preceding his
death, and appeared to fomc, in the attitude, in which the perlbn was to d^?.
The loices of death were thf foreboding flnieks of thofe fpiriii.