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

THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 33'
:ver his fon. Blue-lhieldcd Cathmor roL-. Son of Alpin,
bring the harp ! Give Fillan's praileto the wind ; raile high
his praife in my hall, while yet he fliines in war. Leave
blue-eyed ClV.ho ! leave thy hall? behold that early beam
of thine ! The hoft is withered in its courie. No farther
look — it is dark — ^light-trembling from the harp, ftrike, vir-
gins ! ftrike the found." The fudden interruption, and
fufpenfe of the narration on Cathmor's rifing from his hill,
the abrupt burftiiig into the praife of Fillan, and the paf-
fionatc apoftrophe to his mother Clatho, are admirable ef-
forts of poetical art, in order to intereft us in Fillan's dan-
ger ; and the whole is heightened by the immediately fol-
lowing fimile, one of the moft magnificent and fublime that
is to be met with in any poet, and which if it had been
found in Homer, would have been the frequent fubjedl of
admiration to critics ; " Fillan is like a fpirit of heaven, that
defcends from the Ikirt of his blaft. The troubled ocean
feels his fttps, as he ftrides from wave to wa:ve. His path
kindles behincf him ; iflands (hake their heads on the hea-
ving feas."
But the poet's art is not yet exhaufted. The fall of this
noble young warrior, or in Offian's Ityle, the extindion of
this beam of heaven, could not be renaeied too inteiefting
and afFeding. Our attention is naturally driwn towards
Fingal. He beholds from liis hill the rifmg of Cathmor, and
the danger of his fon. But what fliall he do ? " Sh^il Fin-
gal rife to his aid, and take the fvvoi-d of Luno ? What then
Ihould become of thy fame, fon of vvhite-bofomed Clatho ?
Turn not thine eyes from Fingal, daughter of Iniftore ! |
fliall not quench thy early beam. No cloud of mine fhali
rife, my fon, upon thy foul of fire." Struggling between
concern for the fame, and fear for the fafely of his fon, he
v;ithdrav,'s from the fight of the engagement ; and difpatch-
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