Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

TEMORA. 465
of the streams. If there my standard shall float oq
wind, over Lubar's gleaming stream, then has not
Fingal failed in the last of his fields."
Such were his words ; nor aught replied the silent,
striding kings. They looked sidelong, on Erin's
host, and darkened, as they went. Never before
had they left the king, in the midst of the stormy
field. Behind them, touching at times his harp,
the grey-haired Carril moved. He foresaw the fah
of the people, and mournful was the sound ! It
was like a breeze that comes by fits, over Lego's
reedy lake ; when sleep half descends on the hunter,
within his mossy cave.
" Why bends the bard of Cona," said Fingal,
"over his secret stream ? Is this a time for sorrow,
father of low-laid Oscar ? Be the warriors remem-
bered in peace; when echoing shields are heard no
more. Bend, then, in grief, over the flood, where
blows the mountain breeze. Let them pass on thy
soul, the blue-eyed dwellers of the tomb. But Erin
rolls to war; wide-tumbling, rough, and dark. Lift,
Ossian, lift the shield. I am alone, my son!"
As comes the sudden voice of winds to the be-
calmed ship of Inis-huna, and drives it large, along
the deep, dark rider of the wave; so the voice of
Fingal sent Ossian, tall, along the heath. He lifted
high his shining shield, in the dusky wing of war ;
like the broad, blank moon, in the skirt of a cloud,
before the storms arise.
i Loud, from moss-covered Mora, poured down, at
I once, the broad-winged war. Fingal led his people
I forth, king of Morven of streams. On high spreads
I the eagle's whig. His grey hair is poured on his
! shoulders broad. Inthunder are his miglity strides.
He often stood, and saw, behind, the wide-gleam-
ing rolling of armour. A rock he seemed, grey over
with ice, whose woods are high in wind. Bright
streams leap from its head, and spread their foam
on blasts.
Now he came to Lubar's cave, where Fillan darkly
slept. Bran still lay on the broken shield : the
eagle-wing is strewed by the winds. Bright, from
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