Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

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T E M O R A.
ENEATH an oak," said the king, " I sat on
Selma's streamy rock, when Connal rose, from
the sea, with the broken spear of Duth-caron, Far
distant stood the youth. lie turned away his eyes.
He remembered the steps of his father, on his own
green hills. I darkened in my place. Dusky
. thoughts flew over my soul. The kings of Erin rose
before me. 1 half-unsheathed the sword. Slowly
approached the chiefs. They lifted up their silent
i eyes. Like a ridge of clouds, they wait for the
i bursting forth of my voice. INIy voice was, to them,
a wind from heaven, to roll the mist away.
I " I bade my white sails to rise, before the roar ot
1 Cona's wind. Three hundred youths looked, from
'( their waves, on Fingal's bossy shield. High on the
,1 mast it hung, and marked the dark-blue sea. Eut
! when night came down, I struck, at times, the
I warning boss : I struck, and looked on high, for
• fiery-haired Ul-erin.* Nor absent was the star of
; heaven. It travelled red between the clouds. I
'; pursued the lovely beam, on the faint-gleaming
* deep. With morning, Erin rose in mist. We came
' into the ba3' of Moi-lena, where its blue waters
tumbled, in the bosom of echoing woods. Here
Cormac, in his secret hall, avoids the strength of
Colc-ulla. Nor he alone avoids the foe. The blue
eye of Ros-crana is there : Ros-crana, white handed
maid, the daughter of the king!
"Grey, on his pointless spear came forth the
* Ul-erin, ' the guide to Ireland,' a star known
by that name in the days of Fingal.