Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

AN' EPIC POEiM. 53<?
bar. Cathmor raised the sail at Cluba : but the
Avinds were in other lands. Three days he remain-
ed on the coast, and turned his eyes on Conmor's
halls. He remembered the daughter of strangers,
and his sigh arose. Now when the winds awaked
the wave : from the hill came a youth in arms ; to
lift the sword with Cathmor, in his echoing fields.
It was the white-armed Sul-malla. Secret slic
dwelt beneath her helmet. Her steps were in the
path of the king : on him her blue eyes rolled with
joy, when he lay by liis roaring streams ! But
Cathmor thought, that, on Lumon, she still pur-
sued the rocs. He thought, that, fair on a rock,
she stretched her white hand to the wind ; to feel
its course from Erin, the green dwelling of her love.
at r.iid-night, went to tl\e liall, ^\licre tlie tribes feasted unon
solemn occasions, raised the var song, and thrice called the
spirits of their deceased ancestors to come, on their clouds,
to behold the actions of their children, lie then fixed the
shield of Trenmor on a tree on the rock of Seinia, striking it,
at times, with the blunt end of a spear, and^in^^ing the war-
song between. Thus he did for three successive nights; and,
in the mean time, messengers were dispatched to call toge-
ther the tribes ; or, to use an ancient expression, to call them
from all their streams. This phrase alludes to the situation
of the residences of the clans, which were generally fixed in
valleys, where the torrents of the neighbouring mountains
were collected into one body, and became large streams, or
rivers. The lifting up of the shield was the phrase for be-
;;iniiing a war.