Ossian Collection > Galic antiquities

340 CATHLAVA:
race, that we always flood up, though alone, to defend the weak.
Our fhield was a rock of brafs before the unhappy ; our fpear was
a tree that flickered the flranger. — When I was flrong in my arms
of youth, as the tenant of this tomb was yefterday, I attended the
father of Lava, when he took the fpoils from the halls of Struthor-
man. My words were loud againft him ; for die heroes were ab-
fent, and there was none to oppofe him. One child indeed there
was, who fcarce could wield, in place of a fpear, a little arrow.
That fame he heaved, with all his infant-might, againft the foe.
On the foot of Commar the blunt end of it, harmlefs, fell. The
gloomy chief turned his eye upon the child, and faid, ' Hereafter
this child may lift a more dangerous fpear againft us. Let us leave
him on that defart ifle, where we wait the morning's light.'
We came to the ifle ; and often was the fpear of Commar half-
lifted over the fon of Struthorman. My foul was grieved for the
child of youth. He heard my figh, and came near me. '. He ad-
mired the brightnefs of my arms ; he clafped his little hand about
my knee. He fmiled in my face : the tear glittered in his blue
eye. ' My father !' he faid, ' I love thee.' My heart melted
above him : my foul within me was like the rufhing of a flream ;
like the ftraitened whirlwind in Atha's cleft, when trees in the
ftorm are bending. My fecret tears fell in his yellow locks, as he
hid Ins head in the fkirt of my robe. As the roe, when fhe fears
the hunter hath obferved her haunt, the mofly bed where fhe hath
hid her fon,— or as the eagle of heaven, when fhe thinks that he
hath feen her rock, — carries off, in the night, her young ; fo I
took the child in my arms, when failed the light. I bore him
through the waves to his mother, who wept like the cloud of the
fliower,