Ossian Collection > Gaelic bards

OSSIAXIC POETRY. 183
Farewell ! thou wilt never come to me,
Nor e'er sball my steps reach to thee.
" Farewell! now to courtship for ever !
O king, what a sorrowful sight,
For the maids of the Feinn' thus to see me !
Sad will their dreams be this niglit."
"Alas! that," said Finn, "for a women,
I've slain my own sister's son —
For an ill woman slain him ! Too noble
To be slain for the lovliest one.
" Yesterday, green wert thou, Goolbain !
To-day art thou bloody and red.
Hill of our sorrows, Ben- Goolbain !
Beneath thy grey stones is his bed.
" Beneath thy grey stones, O Ben-Goolbain !
The brown-hair'd chief is laid ;
His blue eyes are sleeping for ever
Under thy green grassy shade.
" Sad stood the heroes beside thee,
O youth of the noble race !
And dim grew the eyes of each maiden
When the mould went over thy face.
" And now, like the tree, I stand lonely —
AVither'd, and wasted, and sear ;
With the rude howling tempest to tear me,
Where the shade of no green bough is near."