Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

AX EPIC POEM. 21F
scatters the clouJs, and rides the eddying winds !
It is Morni * of bounchng steeds ! Be like thy fa-
ther, O Gaul ! "
" Selma is opened wide. Bards take the trem-
bling harps. Ten youths bear the oak of the feast.
A distant sun-beam marks the hill. The dusk}"^
waves of the blast fly over the fields of grass. VV hy
art thou silent, O Selma ? The king returns with
all his fame. Did not the battle roar ; yet peace-
ful is his brow ? It roared, and Fingal overcame.
Be like thy father, O Fillan ! "
They move beneath the song. High wave their
arms, as rushy fields, beneath autumnal winds. On
INIora stands the king in arms. INIist flies round his
buckler abroad ; as, aloft, it liung on a bough, on
Cormul's mossy rock. In silence I stood by Fingal,
and turned my eyes on Cromla's f wood : lest I
the same with that hero. I cannot help observing, that tlie
song of the bards is conducted with propriety. Gaul, whose
experience might Iiave rendered liis conduct cautious in war,
iias the example of his father, just rusliing to battle, set be-
fore his eyes. Fillan, on the other hand, whose youth might
make him impetuous and unguarded in action, is put in
mind of the sedate and serene behaviour of Fingal npon like
occasions.
* The expedition of Morni to Clutha, alluded to here, is
Jiandcd down in tradition.
4 The mountain Croinla was in the neijihbourliood of the