Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

13^ D A R-T H U L A.
they have fallen, fan- light ! and thou dost often retire to mourn.
But thou thyself shalt fail, one night j and leave thy blue path in
heaven. The stars will then lift their green heads : they who were
ashamed in thy presence, will rejoice. Thou art now clothed
with thy brightness : look from thy gates in the sky. Burst the
cloud, O wind, that the daughter of night may look forth, that
the shaggy mountains may brighten, and the ocean roll its blue
waves in light.
Nathos* is on the deep, and Althos that beam of youth; Ar-
dan is near his brothers ; they move in the gloom of their course.
The sons of Usnoth move in darkness, from the wrath of car-
borne Cairbar, f Who is that dim, by their side ? the night has
covered her beauty. Her hair sighs on ocean's wind ; her robe
streams In dusky wreaths. She is like the fair spirit of heaven,
in the midst of his shadowy mist. Who is it but Dar-thula, J the
first of Erin's maids ? She has fled from the love of Cairbar, with
the car-borne Nathos. But the winds deceive thee, O Dar-thula ;
and deny the woody Etha to thy sails. These are not thy moun-
tains, Nathos, nor is that the roar of thy climbing waves. The
halls of Cairbar are near ; and the towers of the foe lift their
heads. Ullin stretches its green head into the sea ; and Tura's
bay receives the sliip. Where have you been, ye southern winds 1
when the sons of my love were deceived ? But ye have been sport-
ing on plains, and pursuing the thistle's beard. O that ye had
been rustling in the sails of Nathos, till the hills of Etha rose !
till they rose in their clouds, and saw their coming chief! Long
hast thou been absent, Nathos ! and the day of thy return is past.
But the land of strangers saw thee, lovely : thou wast lovely
in the eyes of Dar-thula. Thy face was like the light of the
morning, thy hair like the raven's wing. Thy soul was generous
and mild, like the hour of the setting sun. Thy words were the
gale
* Nathos fignifies j««?;?//./; AWthos, txqu'uhe beauty ; Ardan, /ir/Vf.
f Cairbar, who murdered Cormac king of Ireland, and usurped the throne. He
was afterwards killed hy O^car the son of Ossian in a single combat. The poet,
upon other occasions, gives him the epithet of red-haired.
\ Dar-thuia, or Dart-'huile, a luoman ivlth Jinc eyes. She was the most famous
beauty of antiquity. To this day, when a woman is praised for her beauty, th^
doqjmcn phrase is, that .'hi i- a: Uvely as Dar-thula.