Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

446 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN.
Thou art left alone in the field, O grey-haired king
of Selma!"
I laid him in the hollow rock, at the roar of the
nightly stream. One red star looked in on the hero.
Winds lift, at times, his locks. I listen. No sound
is heard. The warrior slept! As lightning on a
cloud, a thought came rushing along my soul. My
eyes roll in fire: my stride was in the clang of steel.
" I will find thee, king of Erin ! in the gathering of
thy thousands find thee. Why should that cloud,
escape, that quenched our early beam ? Kindle your
meteors on yourhills, my fathers. Light my daring
steps. I will consume in wrath.* — But should not
I return? The king is without a son, grey-haired
among his foes ! His arm is not as in the days of
old. His fame grows dim in Erin. Let me not be-
hold him, laid low in his latter field. — But can I re-
tarn to the king ? Will he not ask about his son?
' Thou oughtest to defend young Fillan.' — Ossian
will meet the foe. Green Erin, thy sounding tread
is pleasant to my ear. I rush on thy ridgy host, to
shun the eyes of Fingal. — I hear the voice of the
king, on Mora's misty top ! He calls his two sons!
I come, my father, in my grief. I come like an
eagle, which the flame of night met in the desert,
and spoiled of half his wings !"
Distant, round the king, on Mora, the broken ridges
of Morven are rolled. They turned their eyes : each
darkly bends, on his own ashen spear. Silent stood
the king in the midst. Thought on thought rolled
* Here the sentence is designedly left unfinished.
The sense is, that he was resolved, like a destroying
fire, to consume Cathmor, who had killed his bro-
ther. In the midst of this resolution, the situation
of Fingal suggests itself to him, in a very strong
light. He resolves to return to assist the king in
prosecuting the war. But then his shame for not
defending his brother recurs to him. He is deter-
mined again to go and find out Cathmor. We may
consider him as in the act of advancing towards
the enemy, when the horn of Fingal sounded on
Mora, and called back his people to his presence.'