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

114 temora: Book I. ,
of the people was low ! Bran t is howling at his feet : :
gloomy Luath is sad, for he had often led them to the :
chase ; to the bounding row of the desert.
When Oscar saw his friends around, his breast arose
with sighs. " The groans," he said, " of aged chiefs,
the howling of my dogs, the sudden bursts of songs
of grief, have melted Oscar's soul. My soul, that
never melted before ; it was like the steel of my sword.
Ossian, carry me to my hills ! Raige the stones of my re-
nown. Place the horn of the deer, and my sword with-
in my narrow dweUing. The torrent hereafter may-
raise the earth : the hunter may find the steel and say,
** This has been Oscar's sword."
" And fallest thou, son of my fame ! And shall I ne-
ver see thee, Oscar ! When others hear of their sons,
I shall not hear of thee. The moss is, on thy four
grey stones ; the mournful wind is there. The battle
shall be fought without him : he shall not pursue the ■
dark-brown hinds. W^hen the warrior returus from
battles, and tells of other lands ; I have seen a tomb,
he will say, by the roaring stream, the dark dwelling
of a chief. He fell by car-borne Oscar, the first of mor-
tal men. I, perhaps, shall hear his voice : and a beam
of joy will rise in my soul."
The night would have descended in sorrow, and
morning returned in the shadow of grief: our chiefs
"would have stood like cold dropping rocks on Moi-lena,
and have forgot the war, did not the king disperse his
gritf, and raise his mighty voice. The chiefs, as nev/-
wakened from dreams, lift up their heads around.
" How lon^ on Moi-lena shall we weep ; or pour
our tears m ullin ? The mighty will not return. Oscar
shall not rise in his strength. The valiant must fall
oae day, and be no more known on his hills. Where
are our fathers, O warriors ! the chiefs of the times
©fold ? Tlicy have set hke stars tliat have shone, we on-
t Bran was ere cf ringai's iog«. Bran si£;wfles a niDr.ntaia