Ossian Collection > Galic antiquities

A POEM. 283
fteps on the heath. My image grew a lovely tree within her foul,
and me trembled for the growing blaft. ' If it lay thy green
branches low, no leaf of mine,' {he faid, ' {hall flourilh; no voice
of the fpring {hall awake my beauty.' — In the evening we found
the beam of light in otir cave. Her yellow locks wandered, on
her blufhing face, in the midft of tears, as {lie told the tale of
death. — ' Shun,' {he faid, ' the cave this night ; but tell not the
fteps of Iulorno were nigh it. The foul of my father is dark, as
the gathering of night in the narrow houfe ; why Ihould he know
that his daughter loves the chief of Sliruth ?'
" She funk in her cloud, and retired; like the moon of heaven
when {he hath {hewn the bewildered traveller his path on the
heath. He was wandering thoughtlefs on the face of a rock ; the
beam {hone around him : quick he turns his fteps ; and blefles the
light that faved him.
" We fought with the warriors of night, and prevailed. We
went for Iulorno, but the Heel of her father had pierced her breaft.
Nigh his gate we found her in her blood. She was fair as the dy-
ing fwan on the foam of the ftream of Lano, when the arrow of
the hunter is in her breaft, and her down is lifted by the breath
of gales. — Her brother afked her why fhe would not rife ; and
afked us, wondering, why we wept ? — I gave the child a fword of
light. I reared the tomb of the fair, on the fhore of her native
land. — Moon-beams ftiine on the place when all is dark around ;
and virgin-ghofts breathe there, on the pafling breeze, their fong.
The foul of Iulorno is with them in mift ; the mufic of her voice
is mournful. Through every warm fhower, the fun fmiles on her
green turf, and bathes its rays in the dew of her tomb. — Three
N n 2 days