Ossian Collection > Morison's edition of the Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

7S FINGAL: book v.
tremble at the found of thy fteel. Happy are thy
people, Fingal, chief of the lonely hills.
" Who is that fo dark and terrible, coming in
the thunder of his courfe ? who is but Starno's fon
to meet the king of Morven ? Behold the battle of
the chiefs : it is hke the ftorm of the ocean, when
two fpirits meet far diftant, and contend for the
rolling of the wave. The hunter hears the noife
on his hill j and fees the high billows advancing to
Ardven's ihcre."
Such were the words of Connal, when the he-
roes met in the midfi: of their falling people.
There was the clang of arms ! there every blow,
like the hundred hammers of the furnace ! Terri-
ble is the battle of the kings, and horrid the look
of their eyes. Their dark-brown fhields are cleft
in twain j and their fteel flies, broken, from their
helmets. They fling their weapons down. Each
ruflies '' to the grafp of his foe. Their flnewy arms
bend round each other: they turn from fide to
fide, and ftrain and ftretch their large fpreading
limbs below. But when the pride of their ftrength
arofe, they fliook the hill with their heels ; rocks
tumble from their places on high-; the green-head-
ed bufhes are overturned. At length the ftrength
ioi Swaran fell, and the king of the groves is bound.
Thus