Ossian Collection > Fingal of Ossian

?io F I N G A L. Book III.
Now, like a diftant Billow foaming white,
545 The Ship of haughty Borbar comes in Sight.
His lofty Mafts, behind their Sheets of Snow,
Bend o'er the curling Waves that roll below.
The Strength of Ocean founds : on either Side,
Before the fable Prow, the Waves divide,
550 And to the Stern in frothy Furrows glide.
I hail'd the Chief, and cried, Forfake thy Ship^
Thou fearlefs Rider of the roaring Deep !
Come fhare the Feaft ; my hofpitable Door
Receives the Stranger from the diftant Shore.
At
\r. 553. My hefpitable Door, (ifc] No Nation in the World carried their
Hofpitality to a greater Length than the ancient Scots. It was even infa-
mous, for many Ages, in a Man of Condition, to have the Door of his
Houfc (hut at all, left, as the Bards expreflcd it, the Stranger Jbould come
and behold his conlraiied Soul. Some of the Chiefs were poflefled of this hof-
pitable Difpofuion to an extravagant Degree ; and the Bards, perhaps, up-
on a private Account, never failed to recommend it in their Eulogiums.
Cean-nia na dai, or, the Point to which all the Roads of the Stranger leads,
was an invariable Epithet given by them to the Chiefs; on the Contrary,
they diftinguiihed the inhofpitable by the Title of the Cloud which the
Strangers