Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 2

A POEM. 125
cended night. I tore an oak from its hill, and
raised a flanie on high. I bade my fathers to
look down, from the clouds of their hall ; for,
at the fame of their race, they brighten in the
wind.
I took a stone from the stream, amidst the
song of bards. The blood of Fingal's foes hung
curdled in its ooze. Beneath, I placed, at in-
tervals, three bosses from the shields of foes, as
rose or fell the sound of Ullin's nightly song.
Toscar laid a dagger in earth, a mail of sound-
ing steel. We raised the mould around the
stone, and bade it speak to other years.
Oozy daughter of streams, that now art rear-
ed on high, speak to the feeble, O stone ! after
Selma's race have failed ! Prone, from the stor-
my night, the traveller shall lay him, by thy side :
thy whistling moss shall sound in his dreams ;
the years that were past shall return. Battles
rise before him, blue-shielded kings descend to
war : the darkened moon looks from heaven, on
the troubled field. He shall burst, with morn-
ing, from dreams, and see the tombs of warriors
round. He shall ask about the stone, and the
aged shall reply, "■ This grey stone was raised by
Ossian, a chief of other years ! "