Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

BOOK III. T E M O R A, 237
" Cormul, thou beholdest that path. It winds green behind the
foe. Place thy people there ; lest Morven should escape from my
sword. Bards of green-valleyed Erin, let no voice of yours arise.
The sons of Morven must fall without song. They are the foes
of Cairbar. Hereafter shall the traveller meet their dark, thick
mist on Lena, where it wanders, with their ghosts, beside the
reedy lake. Never shall they rise, without song, to the dwelling
of winds."
Cormul darkened, as he went : behind him rushed his tribe.
They sunk beyond the rock : Gaul spoke to Fillan of Moruth ; as
his eye pursued the course of the dark-eyed king of Dunratho.
<* Thou beholdest the steps of Cormul ; let thine arm be strong.
When he is low, son of Fingal, remember Gaul in war. Here
I fall forward into battle, amidst the ridge of shields."
The sign of death arose : the dreadful sound of Morni's shield.
Gaul poured his voice between. Fingal rose, high on Mora. He
saw them, from wing to wing, bending in the strife. Gleaming,
on his own dark hill, the strength of Atha stood. They were
like two spirits of heaven, standing each on his gloomy cloud ;
when they pour abroad the winds, and lift the roaring seas. The
blue-tumbling of waves is before them, marked with paths of
whales. Themselves are calm and bright ; and the gale lifts their
locks of mist.
What beam of light hangs high in air? It is Morni's dreadful
sword. Death is strewed on thy paths, O Gaul ; thou foldest
them together in thy rage. Like a young oak falls Tur-lathon,*
with his branches round him. His high-bosomed spouse stretches
her white arms, in dreams, to the returning king, as she sleeps
by gurgling Moruth, in her disordered locks. It is his ghost,
Oichoma-, the chief is lowly laid. Hearken not to the winds for
Turlathon's echoing shield. It is pierced, by his streams, and its
sound is past away
G g Not
suits well with the chara^er of Foldath, which is, throiigliotit, Iiaughtv and pre-
sumptuous. Towards the latter end of his speech, we iiiid the opinion of the times,
concerning the unhappiness of the sonls of those wlio were huried without the funeral
song. This doclrine, no doubt, was inculcated by the Lards, to rrtake their order
respedlable and necessary.
* Tur-latlion, broad trunk of a tree. RToruth, ^reat stream. Oichaorha, mUd
maid. Hyxvi-lofA., the bill of the r.ohy sireain. DyxtYi-C^Xcn, dark-Lro^vn man.