Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

60 CARTHON.
Clessammor is so bold ? My soul, I replied, O warrior !
burns in a light of its own. I stand without fear in the
midst of thousands, though the valiant are distant far.
Stranger ! thy words are mighty, for Clessammor is alone.
But my sword trembles by my side, and longs to glitter
in my hand. Speak no more of Comhal, son of the
winding Clutha ! "
" The strength of his pride arose. We fought ; he
fell beneath my sword. The banks of Clutha heard his
fall ; a thousand spears glittered around. I fought : the
strangers prevailed : I plunged into the stream of Clutha,
My white sails rose over the waves, and I bounded on
the dark-blue sea. Moina came to the shore, and rolled
the red eye of her tears : her loose hair flew on the
wind; and I heard her mournful, distant cries. Often
did I turn my ship ; but the winds of the East prevailed.
Nor Clutha ever since have I seen, nor Moina of the
dark brown hair. She fell in Balclutha, for I have seen
her ghost. I knew her as she came through the dusky
night, along the murmur of Lora : she was like the new
moon, seen through the gathered mist: when the sky
pours down its flaky snow, and the world is silent and
dark."
Raise,* ye bards, said the mighty Fingal, the praise of
unhappy Moina. Call her ghost, with your songs, to our
hills ; that she may rest with the fair of Morven, the sun-
* The title of this poem, in the original, is Duan na nlaoi, i.e.
The Poem of the Hymns: probably on account of its many
digressions from the subject, all which are in a tyrip measure as
this song of Fingal.