Ossian Collection > Galic antiquities

A POEM. 169
no more awake my foul from its thought, as they cry, ' Behold
the fhip of Gaul !' Shall the harps of virgins, and the voice of
bards, no more be heard when thou art coming ? — I fee not the
red-ftreaming of thy banners on the heath ; the tread of thy foot
is not there ; nor the found of thy unmifling arrow. The bound-
ing of thy dogs is not on the hill ; they mournfully howl in the
door of thy empty houfe. The deer grazes on the plain before
them : but they weep on ; they do not heed him ; for they fee
not Gaul returning. — Alas ! fons of the chafe, the day of his re-
turn is pad. His glad voice lhall call you no more, in the morning,
to purfue the fleps of roes through rocky mountains. Here, for-
getful of the chafe, he refls ; nor can even the found of Morven's
fhield, O Gaul, awake thee !
" Strength of the warrior, what art thou! To-day, thou rolleit
the battle, a cloud of dull, before thee ; and the dead ftrew thy
path, as the withered leaves mark the courfe of a ghofl of night.
— To-morrow, the fhort dream of thy valour is over ; the terror
of thoufands is vanifhed. The beetle, on his dufky wing, hums
the fong of triumph over the mighty ; and, unmolefled, offends
him. —
" Why, fon of the feeble, didft thou wifh for the flrength of
the chief of Strumon, when thou didft behold him brighten-
ing in the courfe of his fteel, as brightens a pillar of ice in the
midft of fun-beams ? Didfl thou not know that the flrength
of the warrior foon fails, as melts in the beam that ice which thou
hafl been viewing ? Its date is fhort ; like the bright cloud that
glitters to the ray of the evening. The hunter fees it from his
rock, as he hies him home, and admires the rain-bow form of its
Y beauty.