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

BOOK VI. AN EPIC POEM.
round. Filhn is a beam of tire : from wing to wing
is his wafteful courfe. The ridges of war melt be-
fore him. They are rolled, in fmoke, from the
fields.
Now is the coming forth of Cathmor, in the ar-
mour of kings ! Dark-rolled the eagle's wing above
his helmet of fire. Unconcerned are his fteps, as
if they were to the chafe of Atha. He raifed, at
times, his dreadful voice ; Erin, abafhed, gathered
round. Their fouls returned back, like a ftream :
they wondered at the fteps of their fear : for he a-
rofe, like the beam of the morning on a haunted
heath : the traveller looks back, with bending eye,
on the field of dreadful forms. Sudden, from the
rock of Moi-lena, are Sul-malla's trembling fteps.
An oak took the fpear from her hand ; half-bent
Ihe loofed the lance : but then are her eyes on the
king, frorft amiJft her wandering locks. " No
friendly ftrife is before thee : no light contending
of bows, as when the youth of Cluba '^ came forth,
beneath the eye of Conmor."
As the rock of Runo, which takes the pafllng
clouds for its" robe, feems growing, in gathered
darknefs, over the ftreamy heath •, To feemed the
chief of Atha taller, as gathered his people round.
As different blafts fly over the fea, each behind its
dark-blue wave, fo Cathmor's words, on every fide^
poured