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

Book IV. AX LPIC POEM. 151
" Three da^"^ we feasted at Mul-Iena ; she rose
bright amidst my troubled soul. Cormac beheld nie
dark. He gave die white -bi>somed maid. Slie came
with bending eye, amidst the wandering of her heavy
locks. She came. S'j-.iight die l)attle roared. Colc-ul-
la rushed ; I seized my spear. My sword rose with
ray people, against the ridgy foe. Ainecma tied.
Colc-ulla fell. Fingal returned with fame.
" He is renowned, O Fdlan, who fights, in the
strength of his people. The bard pursues his steps,
through the land of the foe. Bat he who fights alone,
few are his deeds to odier times. He shines to-day a
mighty light. To-morrow, he in low. One song contam^
his iame. His name is on one dark field. He is forgot^
but where his tomb sends for':h the tufts of grass."
Such were the words of Fingal, on Mora of the roes.
Three bards, from the rock ofCormul, poured down the
pleasant song. Sleep descended, in the sound, on the
broad-skirt^ host. Carril returned, with the bards,froin
the tombofDun-lora's king. The voice oi: morning shall
not come, to the dusky bed of the hero. >'o more shalt
thou hear the tread cf roes, around thy narrov/ house.
As roll the troubled clouds, round a meteor ot night,
when they brighten their sides v/ith its light, along the
heaving sea : so gathered Erin, around the gleaming
form of Atha's king. He, tail in the midst, careless
lifts, at times, his spear : as swells or falls the sound of
Fonar's distant harp. Nearly him leaned, against a rock,
shower! Ha! is it she, my love: her gliding course on the bosom
©fvwnds!"
In succeeding times the beauty of Ros-crana passed into a proverb ;
and the highest compliinent that could be I'aid to a ivomao, was to
compare her person with the daughter of Cormac.
'S tu fein an Ros-crana.
Siol Chormaec na n'ioma Ian.
k In order to illustrate thi^ p.iss.ijjc, I bhall give, here, the history
on wliich it is founded, as I have gat hered it from other poems. The
nation of the Firbolg, who inhabited the South of Ireiand, L-eiog ori-
giiuUy descended from the Belgae, who possessed the south aiid
south-west coast of Eritair;, kt^t I'p, for many ages, an amicable qor-