Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

Temora. 409
White-breasted Bran came bounding with joy to
the known path of Fingah He came, and looked
towards the cave where the blue-eyed hunter lay,
for he was wont to stride, with morning, to the
dewy bed of the roe. It was then the tears of the
king came down, and his soul was dark. But as
the rising wind rolls away the stoi-m of rain, and
leaves the white streams to the sun, and high hills
with their heads of grass ; so the returning war
brightened the mind of Fingal. He bounded, on
his spear, over Lubar, and struck his echoing
shield. His ridgy host bent forward, at once, with
all their pointed steel.
Nor Erin heard, with fear, the sound : wide they
came rolling along. DarkMalthos, in the wing of war,
looks forward from shaggy brows. Next rose that
beam of light Hidalla ! then the sidelong looking
gloom of Maronnan. Blue-shielded Clonar lifts the
spear ; Cormar shakes his bushy locks on the wind.
Slowly, from behind a rock, rose the bright form
of Atha. First appeared his two pointed spears,
then the half of his buruished shield : like the rising
of a nightly meteor, over the vale of ghosts. But
when he shone aU abroad, the hosts plunged, at
once, into strife. The gleaming waves of steel
are poured on either side.
As meet two troubled seas, with the rolling of
all their waves, %vhen they feel the wings of con-
tending winds, in the rork-sided firth of Lumon ;
along the echoing hills is the dim course of ghosts :
from the blast fall the torn groves on the deep,
amidst the foamy path of whales. So mixed the
hosts ! Now Fingal ; now Cathmor came abroad.
The dark tumbling of death is before them : the
gleam of broken steel is rolled on their steps, as,
loud, the high-bounding kings hewed down the
ridge of shields.
Maronnan fell, by Fingal, laid large across a
stream. The waters gathered by his side, and leapt