Ossian Collection > Galic antiquities

20 8 F I K A N and LORM A:
one day be no more. Like a gray tree which the blafl hath over-
turned in the flood, it {hall fall ; and its top fhall be wet in the
midft of Alva. The crowded flream fhall change its courfe.
Through the ruin is its wandering way. The thorn had been lift-
ing there its flowery head : the brier was green betwixt the mofly
ftones. The heath and the fern fhook there, in the breeze of
night, their heads, and formed a bed for the dun roes. — The flream
came. It waflied away the mound of earth. In the face of the
broken bank juts out the dark-crufted fliield. The hunter obferves
it,~as he bounds over the flream in his courfe. ' What dark orb,'
he fays, ' is that ; dim as the circle within the new horns of the
moon ?' — He loofes away, with his fpear, the earth : his foul travels,
glad, through the ages that have been. Lifting his head he looks
around, and fees the palace of other years in its own green tomb.
1 The dwelling of heroes,' he fays, ' has been here ; the hall of kings
in the years that are no more.' — Yes, flranger, thou ftandeft in the
hall of kings : touch not their dark-brown fhield, if thou art not
of the race of heroes. For that was the ihield of Ardan. — Ardan !
thou dweller of the tempeft's wing, defcend from thy mift : de-
fcend on thy ruftling blafl, and receive thy arms. — Guard them
in the hall of Dunalva f."
Such was the fong of the bards, when they hung on high the
arms of Murno. But the foul of the chief ftill is fad. The figh
of his bread is heard, at times, like the found of a lonely wave, or
the figh of the gale in the grafs of the tomb. — We bring him to
Selma
f Befules this folemn resignation of feveral paflages in the ancient Galic
arms made by the laft perfon of any poetry, that every hero at a certain age
race to the ghofts of his fathers or tu- was allowed to " hang up his arms in
telar fpirits of his family, it appears from the hall," and decline the toils of battle.