Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

Dar-ThuJa. 315
they, ■who were ashamed in thy presence, will re-
joice. Thou art now clothed with thy brightness.
Look from thy gates in the sky. Burst the cloud, O
wind ! that the daughter of night may look forth ;
that the shaggy mountains may brighten, and the
ocean roll its white waves in light.
Nathos is on the deep, and Althos, that beam of
youth. Ardan is near his brothers. They move
in the gloom of their course. The sons of Usnoth
move in darkness, from the wrath of Cairbar of
Erin. Who is that, dim by their side ? The night
has covered her beauty ! Her hair sighs on ocean's
wind. Her robe streams in dusky wreaths. She
is like the fair spirit of heaven in the midst of his
shadowy mist. Who is it but Dar-thula, the first
of Erin's maids ? She has fled from the love of
Cairbar, with blue-shielded Nathos. But the winds
deceive thee, O Dar-thula ! They deny the woody
Etha to thy sails. These are not the mountains of Na-
thos ; nor is that the roar of liis climbing waves. The
halls of Cairbar are near: the towers of the foe lift
their heads ! Erin stretches its green head into the
sea. Tura's bay receives the ship. Where have
ye been, ye southern winds, when the sons of my
love were deceived ? But ye have been sporting
on plains, pursuing the thistle's beard. O that ye
had been rustling in the sails of Nathos, tUl the liills
of Etha arose ! till they arose in their clouds, and
saw their returning chief! Long hast thou been
absent, Nathos ! the day of thy return is past !
But the land of strangers saw thee lovely ! thou
wast lovely in the eyes of Dar-thula. Thy face was
like the light of the morning. Thy hair like the
raven's wing. Thy soul was generous and mild, hke
the hour of the setting sun. Thy words were the gale
of the reeds ; the ghding stream of Lora ! But when
the rage of battle rose, thou wast a sea in a storm.
The clang of thy arms was terrible : the host vanish-
ed at the sound of thy coxuse. It was then Dar-thula