Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 2

431
290 Where young Fillau dwelt in night ;
One tree was beside the great stream
Which fell and gleamed from the height.
There, in the light of the moon, was seen
The broken shield of Clatho's hero-son,
295 And near it, stretched upon the grass,
The shaggy foot of the brave dog Bran.'^
He did not see the chief on Mora ;
He went to meet him on the wind : "
He thought that the hunter had closed
300 His blue eye in the folds of sleep.
There stirred not a breeze on the hill
Unnoticed l^y the brindled bounder after deer.'
In the moon-
light he no-
tices the
hroken shield
of Fillan,
and sees the
celebrated
dog Bran
lying beside
it.
Ca-mor saw the white-breasted dog ;
He saw the broken shield beside him :
305 Darkness returned to his soul ;
Mournful thoughts arose in gloom
For the fall of chiefs upon the field.
" Men come like streams which downward flow
Then will come a worthless race ;
310 Yet some of these will mark the mountain
With their valiant deeds as they pass :
Mounds, when sought, will tell their tale.
Through the course of dark-brown years ;
struck by the
sight, he stays
his step, and
moralises on
the brief life
of man ;
lieath unknoAvii to bounding Bran.
Cathmor saw the white-breasted dog ; he saw the broken shield.
Darkness is blown back on his soul ; lie remembers the falling away
of the people. They come a stream, are rolled away ; another race
succeeds. " But some mark the fields as they pass with tlieir own
mighty names. The heath through dark-brown years is theirs;