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

So TEMORA;
beam, are ye feen in the defart wild ; but ye retire
in your blafts before our fteps approach. Go then,
ye feeble race ! knowledge with you there is none.
Your joys are weak, and like the dreams of our
reft, or the light-winged thought that flies acrofs
the foul. Shall Cathmor foon be low ? Darkly
laid in his narrow houfe ? where no morning comes
with her half-opened eyes. Away, thou Ihade !
to fight is mine, all further thought away ! I rufh
forth, on eagle wings, to feize my beam of fame.
In the lonely vale of ftreams, abides the little * foul.
Years roll on, feafons return, but he is ftill un-
known. In a blaft comes cloudy death, and lays
his gray head low. His ghoft is rolled on the va-
pour of the fenny field. Its courfe is never on hills^.
or moflTy vales of wind. So fhall not Cathmor de-
part, no boy in the field was he, who only marks
the bed of roes, upon the echoing hills. My iffur
ing forth was with kings, and my joy in dreadful
plains : where broken hofts are rolled away, like
feas before the wind.'"
So fpoke the king of Alnecma, brightening in
his rlfing foul: valour, like a pleafant flame, is
gleaming within his breaft. Stately is his ftride on
the heath : the beam of eaft is poured around. He
faw his gray hoft on the field, wide-fpreading their
ridges in light. He rejoiced, like a fpirit of hea-
ven,