Ossian Collection > Galic antiquities

j 7 6 D U T H O N A:
We met, in our rattling fleel, the darkly-moving hofl. Their
arrows fell, like a fhower of hail, on our mields ; but we fought
not the fall of our friends. They gathered about us, like die fea
about a rock. The king faw that his people muft fight or fall.
He came from his hill in the awful flride of his fhrength, like a
ghoft that hath clothed himfelf in ftorms. The moon railed her
head above the hill, and beamed on the mining blade of Luno. It
glittered in the hand of the king, like a pillar of ice in the fall of
Lora, when the fun is bright in the midft of his journey. Dutho-
na faw its blaze, but could not bear its light. They retired, like
darknefs when it fees the fteps of the morning, and funk in a
wood that rofe behind.
Slow-moving like Lubar, when he repeats in Dura's plain his
courfe, we came to a hollow ftream that ran before us on the heath.
Its bed is between two banks of ferns, amidfl many an aged birch.
There we talked of the ftorms of battle and the actions of former
heroes. Carril fung of the times of old : Oman praifed the deeds
of Conar ; nor did his harp forget the mild beauty of Minla.
The voice of the fong ceafed. The breeze whiftled along the
gurgling ftream. It bore to our ear the found of grief. It was
foft as the voice of ghofts in the bofom of groves, when they
travel over the tombs of the dead.
Go, Oman, faid the king, and fearchthe banks of the ftream ;
fome one of our friends lies there, on his dark fhield, overturned
like a tree in the ftrife of night. Bring him to Fingal, that he may
apply the herbs of the mountain ; left any cloud mould darken
our joy in the land of Duthona.
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