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

3cok VI. AN Eric roEM. 1T3
lie sunk behind his rock, amidst the sound of Carril's
;ong. Brightening, in my growing soul, I took the
;pear of Tcmora W I saw, alonc^ Moi-lena, the wild
lunibling of battle, the strife ot death, in p/ieaniing
3, disjoined and broken round. Tillan is a beam of
fire. From wing to wing is his wasteful course. Tlie
ridges of war melt before him. They are rolled, in
smoke from the fields.
Now is tiie coming forth of Cathmor, in the armour
of kings ! Dark-rolled the eagle's wing above irs hel-
met of nre. Unconcerned are his steps, as if they were
to the chase of Atha. He raised, at times, his dread-
ful voice ; Erin, abashed, gathered round. Their souls
returned back, like a stream ; they wondered at the
steps of their fear : for he rose, like the beam of the
morning on a haunted heath : the traveller looks back,
with bending eye, on die field of dreadful forms. Sud-
den, from the rock of Moi-lcna, are Sul-m.alla's trem-
blnig steps. An oak took the spear from her hand ;
hair-bent she loosed the lance : but then are her eyes on
the king, from amidst her wandering locks. " No^
friendly strife is before thee : no l-ght contending of
bows, as when the youth of Clubaq carne forth beneath
the eye of Con-mor."
As the rock of Runo, which takes the passing clouds
from its robe, seems gro^^■ing in gathered darkness over
the strcamv heath ; so seemed the chief of Atha taller,
as. gathered his people round. As diiTerent blasts fly
over the sea, each behind its dark-blue wave, so Cath-
q The spear of Temora was that which Oscar had received in a
present, from Cormac tiic son of Artho, king of Ireland It was of
it that Cairbar made the pretext for qiiavrcling with Oscar, at tlie
fcast.in the f rst hook.
r Chi-ba, » winding bay;' an arm of ti.e sea in Inis-huna, or the
western coast of South Britain. It was in this bay that Cathmor
waij wind-bound when Sul-malla came in the disguise of a yo;.iig
warrior, to accompany him in his voyage to Ireland, Con-mr.r, the
father of Sul-mAlla, as we learn from her soliloquy, at th*- doe oi
the fourth book, w as dead before the dtp.-.vlure of his daughter,.
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