Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

466 THE POEMS OF OSSTAN.
withered furze, looked forth the hero's spear. Then
grief stirred the soul of the king, like whirlwinds
blackening on a lake. He turned his sudden step,
and leaned on his bending spear.
White-breasted Bran came bounding with joy to
the known path of Fingal. He came, and looked to-
wards the cave, where the blue-eyed hunter lay, for
he was wont to stride, with morning, to the dewy
bed of the roe. It was then the tears of the king
came down, and all his soul was dark. But as the
rising wind rolls away the storm of rain, and leaves
the white streams to the sun, and high hills with
their heads of grass; so the returning war bright-
ened the mind of Fingal. He bounded, on his spear,
over Lubar, and struck his echoing shield. His
ridgy host bend forward, at once, with all their
pointed steel.
Nor Erin heard, with fear, the sound : wide they
came rolling along. Dark Malthos, in the wing of
war, looks forward from shaggy brows. Next rose
that beam of light, Hidalla I then the sidelong look-
ing gloom of Maronnan. Blue-shielded Clonar lifts
the spear; Cormar shakes his bushy locks on the
wind. Slowly, from behind a rock, rose the bright
form of Atha. Firstappearedhistwopointedspears,
then the half of his burnished shield : like the rising
of a nightly meteor, over the vale of ghosts. But
when he shone all abroad, the hosts plunged, at
once, into strife. The gleaming waves of steel are
poured on either side.
As meettwo troubled seas, with the rolling of all
their waves, when they feel the wings of contending
winds, in the rock-sided firth of Lumon; along the
echoing hills is the dim course of ghosts : from the
blast fall the torn groves on the deep, amidst the
foamy path of whales. So mixed the hosts ! Now
Fingal ; now Cathmor came abroad. The dark turn*
bling of death is before them: the gleam of broken
steel is rolled *on their steps, as, loud, the liigh-
bounding kings hewed down the ridge of shields.
Maronnan fell, by Fingal, laid large across a
stream. The waters gathered by his side, and leapt