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

THE POEMS OF OSSIAT^. a8>
valour. I am faft approaching to my end. A cruel death
awaits me from the viper's bite. A fnake dwells m tha
midft of my heart. I hope that the fword of fome of my
fons fhall yet be ftained with the blood of Ella. The va-
liant youths v/ill' wax red with anger, and will not fit in
peace. Fifty and one times have I reared the ftandard in-
battle. 'In my youth I learned to dye the fword in blood ;
my hope was then, that no king among men would be more
renowned than me. The goddefles of death will now foon
call me ; I muft not mourn my death. Now I end my
fong. The goddefles invite me away ;■ they whom Odin
has fent to me from his hall. I will fit upon a- lofty feat5,
and drink ale joyfully with the goddefies of death. The
hours of my life are run out. I will Irnile when I die."
This is fueh poetry as ws might exped: from- a barbarous
nation. It brealhes a moft ferocious fpirit. R is wild,
harfli, and irregular ; but at the fame time animated and
ftrong ; the ftyle, in the original, full of inverfions, and, as
we learn from- fome of Olaua's notes» highly metaphorical
and figured.
But when we open the works of Oflian, a very different
fcene prefents itfelf. There we find the fire and enthufiafui
of the moft early times, combined with an amazing degree
of regularity and art. We find tendernefs, and even deli-
cacy of fentiment, greatly predominant over frercenefs and
barbarity. Our hearts are melted with the fofteft feelingSp
and at the fame time elevated with the higheft ideas of mag-
nanimity, generofity, and tru« heroifm. When we turn
from the poetry of Lodbrog to that of Offian it is like paf-
iing from a falvage defart, into a fertile and cultivated
countr)'. How is this to be accounted for ? Or by wh.-;t
means to be reconciled with the remote antiquity attributed
to