Ossian Collection > Works of Ossian, the son of Fingal > Volumes 3 and 4

126 T E M O R A: Book IV.
Sons of pride, faid the king^ allay your
iwelling ibuls. Retire in night. - — ^ Why
lliould my rage aiife ? Should I contend with
both in arms ? ■ It is no time for ftrife*
Retire, ye clouds at my feaft. Awake my
foul no more. They funk from the king
on either iide- like *) two columns of morn-
ing- mift, when the fun rifes , between them,
on his glittering rocks. Dark is their rolling
on either fide; each towards its reedy pool.
Silent fat the chiefs at the feall. They
looked , at times , on Atha's king , where he
ftrode , on his rock, amidil: his fettling foul.
-^ ' The hoft lay, at length, on the field:
fleep
"' ) The pcet fhouM fcarcely find , in all nature , a
compaiifon lo favourable as this to the fuperiori-
ty of Cuthmor over his two chiefs. I fhall illus-
trate this palTage with another from a fragment
of an ancient poem, jufl: now in my hands. -^
" As the fun is above the vapours , which his
beams have raifed ; fo is the foul of the Wng above
the fons of fear. They roll dark below him j he
rejoices in the orbe of his beams. But when feeb-
le deeds wander on the foul of the king, he is
a darkened fun rolled along the f ky : the valley
is fad below : iiowers wither beneath tho drops of
the night. ■"