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

214 CATKLIN OF CLUTHA: I
-from its bough. On-ward came the rattling of stefeli
It was Oscar fi of Lego. He had seen his tathers.
" As i^ushes forth the blast, on the bosom of whiten-
ingwaves; socareless shall rtiycourse be through ocean,
to the dwelling of foes. I have seen the dead, my fa-
ther. My beating soul is high. My fame is bright
before me, like the streak of light rin a cloud, wlien the
feroad sun comes forth, red traveller of the sky."
" Grandson of Branno," I said ; " not Oscar alone
shall meet the foe. I rush forward, througli ocean, to
the woody dwelling of heroes. Let us contend, my
soft, like eagles, from one rock ; when they lift their
broad wings, against the stream of winds." We raised
our sails m Carmona. From three ships, they marked
my shield on the wave, as I looked on nightly Ton-the-
na = red wanderer between the clouds. Four days
came the breeze abroad. Lumon came forward in mist.
In winds were its hundred groves. Sun-beams mark-
ed, at times, its brown side. White, leapt the foamy
streams from all its echoing rocks.
A green field, in the bosom of hills, winds silent witl^
its own blue stream. Here, midst the waving of oaks,
were the dwelling of kings c^ old. But silence, for
many dark-brown years, had settled in grassy Rath-
d Oscar is here called Oscn.r Of, Lego, from liis mother being the:
daughter of Branno, a powerful chief, on the banks of that lake.
It is remarkable that Ossian addresses no poem to Malvina, in
vhich her lover Oscar was not one of tlie principal actors. His
attention to her, after the death of his son, shows that delicacy of
sentiment is not convened, as sorae fondly imagine, to our own po-
lished times.
e Ton-thena, « fire of the wave,' was that r«rnarkab!e star,
which as has been mentioned iti the seventh book of Temora,
directed the course of Larthon to Ireland. It seems to have
been well known to those who sailed on tliat .sea which di-
vides Ireland from South Britain. As tiie course of Ossian was
along the c»ast o* Inis-buna, he mentions with propriety, that
star which directed the voyage of the celoay from that coun-
try to Ireland.