Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

SSQ-
BEftRATHON-
thine arms. Thy form now is not ihc terror of the
valiant. It is like a watery cloud ; when we see
the stars behind it, with their weeping eyes. Thy
shield is the aged moon : thy sword a vapour half-
kindled with lire. Dim and feeble is the chief,
■who travelled in brightness before ! But thy steps *
are on the winds of the desert. The storms arc
darkening in thy hand. Thou takest the sun in thy
wrath, and hidest him in thy clouds. The sons of
little men are afraid. A thousand showers descend.
But when thou comest forth in thy mildness ; the
gale of the morning is near thy course. The sun
laughs in his blue fields. The grey stream winds in
its vale. The bushes shake their green heads in the
wind. The roes bound towards the desert.
" There is a murmur in the heath ! the stormy
winds abate ! I hear the voice of Fingal. Long has
it been absent from mine ear ! ' Come, Ossian,
come away/ he says. Fingal has received his fame.
We passed away, like flames that had shone for a
* This description of the power of Fingal over the winds
and storms, and the image of his taking the sun, and hiding
him in the clouds, do not correspond with the preceding pa-
ragraph, where lie is represented as a feeble ghost, and no
more the teiiror of the valiant ; but it agrees wiili the
notion of the times concerning the souls of the deceased,
who, it was supposed, had tiie command of the winds and
storms, but took uo coiiccrn in the affaiis of men.