Ossian Collection > Fingal

A P O E M. Ill
like the roar of a winter ftream : the battle falls
in his courfe, and death is at his fide.
Who comes, faid Fingal, like the bounding
roe, like the hart of echoing Cona ? His fliield
glitters on his fide; and the clang of his armour
is mournful. — He meets with Erragon in theflrife!
— Behold the battle of the chiefs! — it is like the
contending of ghofls in a gloomy florm. — But
failed thou, fon of the hill, and is thy white bo-
fom ftained with blood ? Weep, unhappy Lorma,
Aldo is no more.
The king took the fpear of his ftrength ; for he
was fad for the fall of Aldo : he bent his deathfui
eyes on the foe ; but Gaul met the king of Sora.
— Who can relate the fight of the chiefs ? — The
mighty ftranger fell.
Sons of Cona ! FIngal cried aloud, ftop the
hand of death. — Mighty was he that is now fo
low ! and much is he mourned in Sora ! The
Granger will come towards his hall, and wonder
why it is filent. The king is fallen, O ffranger,
and the joy of his houfe is ceafed. — Liften to the
found of his woods: perhaps his ghoft is there;
but he is far diftant, on Morven, beneath the
fword of a foreign foe.
Such were the words of Fingal, when the
bard raifed the fong of peace ; we flopped our up-
lifted fwords, and fpared the feeble foe. We laid
Erragon in that tomb ; and I raifed the voice of
grief: the clouds of night came rolling down, and
the ghofl of Erragon appeared to fome. — His face
was cloudy and dark ; and an half-formed figh is
in his breaft. — Bleft be thy foul, O king of Sora !
thine arm was terrible in war !
Lorma fat in Aldo's hall, at the light of a
flaming oak: the night came, but he did not re-
turn J and the loul of Lorma is fad.— -What de-
tains