Ossian Collection > Galic antiquities

2 7 o T R A T H A L:
lent, cold, and defolate. Mor-ardan faw the beauty of my daugh-
ter. No other child was mine. He loved her ; but fhe heard him
not. The wrath of his bofom was a fire that was concealed. He
came on the fea with his fkifF. Four rofe upon his oars. Slif-
gala and her father flood upon the fhore. We are forced to go
in the boat. The florm detains them now on thy coaft. Give
me, Trathal, one of thefe fpears ; and lend, thou firft of men,
thy aid."
Trathal heard the tale of grief. Joy and rage burned at once
in his foul. He gave the fpear, and fearlefs went : the murmur of
his courfe was like a ftream that is concealed. An hoft arofe be-
fore him. The fon of age behind them funk. The king, in his
wrath, half-lifted the fpear ; but his foul bade him fpare the age
of the feeble. " Stain not, Trathal," it faid, " with his blood
thy fpear."
Fifty fpears are lifted ; fifty fwords fhake their flames, like
lightning, around him. Colgul rifes in the midft. The joy of his
face is dark ; as fire in the pillar of fmoke ; as a meteor that fits on,
a cloud, when the moon of night is dark, and the woody moun-
tains hear the florm.
— In DorinefTa he had once purfued with Trathal the chafe, and
lifted with the king, in fport, the fpear. But who could purfue
the chace, who lift the fpear with Trathal ? The brown-eyed maid
of DorinefTa fighed, as fhe beheld the king ; and turned away her
eye from Colgul. The chief in the darknefs of his wrath retired,
as retires a ghofl on his fullen blafl when he cannot tear the oak.
He waits in the cave of clouds, till he come again in the roar of
winds.