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

203 T E M R A : Book VIII. i
Nor El in heard, with fear, the sound: v/ide they,
came rolling along. Dark Mahhos, in the wing of
war, looks forward from shaggy brows. Next rose '
that beam of light Hidalla; then the side-long-looking [
gloom of Maronnan. Blue-shielded Cionar lifts the
spear ; Cormar shakes his bushy locks on the wind.
Slowly, from behind a rock, rose the bright form of
Atha. First appeared his two pointed spears, then the
half of his burnished shield : like the rising of a nightly
meteor, over the vale of ghosts. But when he slione
all abroad, the hosts plunged, at once, into strife. The
gleaming waves of steel are poured on either side.
As meet two troubled seas, with the rolling of all
their waves, when they feel the v/ings of contending
winds, in the rock-sided frith of Lumon ; along tlie e-
choing hills in the dim course of ghosts : from the blast
fall the torn groves on the deep, amidst the foamy path
of v/hales. So mixed the hosts ! Now Fingal, now
Cathmor came abroad. The dark tumbling of death
is before them : the gleam of broken steel is rolled on
their steps, as, loud, the high-bounding kings hcw^ed
down the ridge of shields. .
Maronnan fell, by Fingal, laid large across a stream.
7'he waters gathered by his side, and leapt ^,rey ever
his bossy shield. Cionar is pierced by Cathmor : nor
yet t?.v the chief on earth. An oak seized his hair in
his fall. His helmet rolled on the ground. By its
thong, hung his broad shield ; over it wandered his
streaming blood. Tlamin z shall weep, in the hall, and
■ z Tla-niin, « mildly soft,' The loves of Cionar and Tlauiin
were rendered famous in the north, by the fragment of a lyric
poem, still preserved, which is ascrihed to Ossian. It is a dialogue
between Cionar and Tlamin. Elic bcginji with a soliloquy, whicii
lie ovei hears.
Tianiin. " Cionar, son of Conglasof I-rnor, yownc hunter of dun-
sided rocs ! .wl'.erc art thou laid, ani-l ' i i I : , i •• aUi the passin.j
vitig of the breeze? I behold thee, iv., ' . . ; tl > I'lUi of thy owij
«'.ark streams ! The clung thorn is rvV.cA Iv []\.- v, ,;ul, atid rustles a-
Kng his shield. Bright i.i hit locks h: Uc;; the thoughts of his