Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

CATH-LODA. 321
If on the heath she moved, her breast was whiter than the down
«f Cana \* if on the sea-beat shore, than the foam of the roUing
ocean. Her eyes were two stars of light ; her face was heaven's
bow in showers ; her dark hair flowed round it, Uke streaming
clouds. Thou wert the dweller of souls, white-handed Strina-
dona !
Colgorm came, in his ship, and Corcul-Surnn, king of shells.
The brothers came, from' I-thorna, to woo the sun-beam of Tor-
moth's isle. She saw them in their echoing steel. Her soul was
fixed on blue-eyed Colgorm. Ul-lochlin'sf nightly eye looked in^
and saw the tossing arms of Strina-dona.
Wrathful the brothers frowned. Their flaming eyes, in silence,
inet. They turned away. They struck their shields. Their hands
were trembling on their swords. They rushed into the strife of
heroes, for long-haired Strina-dona.
Corcul-Suran fell in blood. On his isle, raged the strength of
his father- He turned Colgorm, from I-thorno, to wander on
all the winds. In Crathmo-craulo's rocky field, he dwelt by a fo-
reign stream. Nor darkened the king alone, that beam of light
was near, the daughter of echoing Tormoth, white-armed Stri-
na-dona.^
C A T II-
* The Cana is a certain kind of grass, which grows plentifully in the heathy
morasses of the north. Its stalk is of the reedy kind, and it carries a tuft of down,
very much resembling cotton. It is excessively white, and, consequently, often
introduced by the bards, in their similies concerning the beauty of women.
f Ul-lochlin, the guide to Locblin ; the name of a' star.
^ The continuation of this episode is just now in my hands : but the language is
so different from, and the ideas so unworthy of, Ossian, that I have rejeded itj as
an int'Crpolation by a modern bard.