Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal > Volume 2

A PO£M. 5
praise of unhappy Moina. Cail her gliosts, with your
songs, to our hills ; that she niay rest with the fair of
Morven, the sun-beams of ether days, and the delight
of heroes of old. I have seen the walls of Balclutha,
but they were desolate. The lire had resounded in the
halls; and the voiceof the people is he.'.rd no more. The
stream of Clutha was removed from its place, by the fall
of the walls. The thistle shook, there, its lonely head :
the nioss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out
from tlie windows ; the rank grass of the wall waved
round his head. Desolate is the dwelling of Moina, si-
lence is in the house of her father. Raise the song of
mourning, O bards, over die land of strangers. They
have but fallen before us : for, one day, we must fall.
Why dost thou build die hall, son of the winged days ?
thou lookest from thy towers to-day ; yet a few years,
and the blast of the desert comes; it howls in thy empty
court, and whistles round thy half-worn sliield. And
let the blast of the desert come ! we shall be renowned
in our day. The mai-k of my arm shall be in the battle,
and my name in the song of bards. Raise the song ;
send round the shell : and let joy be heard in ray hall.
When thou, sun of heaven, shalt fail ! if thou shalt fail,
thou mighty light ! if thy brightness isfor a season ; like
Fingalj our fame shall survive thy beams.'*
Such was the song of Fingal, in the day of his joy.
His thousand bards leaned forward from their seats, to
hear the voice of the king. It was like the m.usic of
the harp on the gale of the spring. Lovely were thy
thoughts, O Fingal ! why had not Ossian the strength
of thy soul ? But thou standest alone, ray father ; and
who can equal die king of Morven ?
The night passed away in song, and morning return-
ed in joy ; the mountains showed their grey heads ;
Fingal. Fingal is celebrated by the Irish historians for his wisdom
in making law.s, his poetical genius, and Iiis foreknowlcdgje of events.
— O'Flaberty goes so far as to say, that Fingal's laws were extant in
his own time.
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