Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

ox THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 95
and ■would have been admired in any poet of th&
most refined age. The conduct of Croma must
strike every reader as remarkably judicious and
beautiful. We are to be prepared for the death of
Malvina, which is related in the succeeding poem.
She is therefore introduced in person ; " she has
heard a voice in her dream; she feels the fluttering
of her soul;" and in a most moving lamentation
addressed to her beloved Oscar, she sings her own
death-song. Nothing could be calculated with
more art to sooth and comfort her than the story
which Ossian relates. In the young and brave Fo-
vargormo, another Oscar is introduced; his praises
are suniz; and the happiness is set before her of
those who die in their youth, " when their renown
is around them ; before the feeble behold them in
the hall, and smile at their trembling hands."
But no where does Ossian's genius appear to
greater advantage, than in Berrathon, which is
reckoned the conclusion of his songs, " The last
sound of the voice of Cona."
Qualis olor noto positurus littore vitam,
Ingemit, et mcEstis mulcens concentibus auras
Prtesago quaeritur veuientia funera cantu.
The whole train of ideas is admirably suited to
the subject. Every thing is full of that invisible
world, into which the aged bard believes himself
now ready to enter. The airy hall of Fingal pre-
sents itself to his view; " he sees the cloud that
shall receive his ghost; he beholds the mist that
shall form his robe when he appears on his hill;"
and all the natural objects around him seem to
carry the presages of death. " The thistle shakes
its beard to the wind. The flower hangs its heavy
head ; it seems to say, I am covered with the drops
of heaven ; the time of my departure is near, and
the blast that shall scatter my leaves."' Malvina's
death is hinted to him in the most delicate manner
by the son of Alpin. His lamentation over her,
^her apotheosis, or ascentto the habitation of heroes,
land the introduction to the itory which follows from
the mention which Ossian supposes the father of
Malvina to make of him in the hall of Fingal, are.