Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

C A T H-L D A,
A POEM.
Ossian, after some general rejisciioiis, describes the situation of Firigal, and the position
of the army of Lochlin, The conversation of Starno and Sivaran. The episode of
Cormar-trunar and Foinar-bragal. Starno, from his oiun example, recommends ta
Sivaran, to surprise Fingal, -who had retired alone to a neighbouring hill. Upon Siva-
ran s refusal, Starno undertakes the enterprise himself, is overcome, and taken prisoner^
by Fingal, He is dismissed, after a severe reprimand far his cruelly.
DUAN THIRD.
W HENCE is the stream of years ? Whither do they roll along ?
Where have they hid, in mist, their many-coloured sides ? I look
into the times of old, but they seem dim to Ossian's eyes, like re-
flected moon-beams, on a distant lake. Here rise the red beams
of war ! There, silent, dwells a feelsle race ! They mark no years
with their deeds, as slow tliey pass along. Dweller between the
shields ; thou that awakest the failing soul, descend from thy wall,
harp of Cona, with thy voices three ! Come with that which
kindles the past : rear the forms of old, on their own dark brown
years !
U-thorno,* hill of storms, I behoM my race on thy side.
Fingal is bending in night, over Duth-maruno's tomb. Near him
are
* The bards, who were always reaiy to supply what they thought deficient in
the poems of Ossian, have inserted a great many incidents between the second and
third Duan of Cath-loda. Their interpolations are so easily distinguished from the
genuine remains of Ossian, that it took me very little time to mark them out, and
totally to rejeft them. If the modern Scots and Irish bards have shewn any judge-
ment, it is in ascribing their own compositions to names of antiquity, for, by that
means, they themselves have escaped that contempt, which the authors of such fu-
tile performances must, necessarily, have met with, from people of true taste. I
was led into this observation, by an Irish poem, just now before me. It concerns
a descent made by Swaran, king of Lochlin, on Ireland, and is the work, says the
traditional preface prefixed to it, of Ossian Mac-Fion. It however appears, from se-
veral pious ejaculations, that it was rather the composition of some good priest, in
the fifteenth or sixteenth century, for he speaks, with great devotion, of pilgrimage,
and more particularly, of the blue-eyed daughters of the convent. Religious, however,
as this poet was, he was not altogether decent, in the scenes he introduces between
Swaran and the wife of CongculUon, both of whom he represents as giants. It hap-
pening