Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

BERRA'PHON. 421
resounds. Bends there not a tree from Mora with its
branches bare ? It bends, son of Alpin, in the rustling
blast. My harp hangs on a blasted branch. The
sound of its strings is mournful. Does the wind
touch thee, harp, or is it some passing ghost? It is
the hand of Malvina ! Bring me the harp, son of Alpin.
Another song shall rise. My soul shall depart in the
sound. My fathers shall hear it in their airy hall,
llieir dim faces shaU hang, with joy from their clouds;
and their hands receiye their son. The aged oak bends
over the stream. It sighs with all its moss. The wi-
thered fern whistles near, and mixes, as it waves,
with Ossian's hair.
* Strike the harp, and raise the song: be near, Avith
all your wings, ye winds. Bear the moumfxil sound
away to Fingal's airy hall. Bear it to Fingal's hall,
that he may hear the voice of his son : the voice of
him that praised the mighty !
* The blast of north opens thy gates, O king! I be-
hold thee sitting on mist, dimly gleaming in all thine
arms. Thy form now is not the terror of the valiant.
It is like a watery cloud; when we see the stai's be-
hind it, with their weeping eyes. Thy shield is the
aged moon : thy sword a vapour half kindled with
fire. Dim and feeble is the chief, who travelled in
brightness before ! But hy steps are on the winds of
the desert. The storms are darkening in thy hand.
Thou takest the sun in thy wrath, and hidest him in
thy clouds. The sons of little men are afraid. A
thousand showers descend. But when thou comest
forth in thy mildness, the gale of the morning is near
thy course. The sun laughs in his blue fields. The
gray stream winds in its vale. The bushes shake
their green heads in the wind. The roes bound to-
wards the desert.
' ITiere is a miirmur in the heath ! the stormy winds
abate! I hear the voice of Fingal. Long has it been
absent from mine ear ! ' Come, Ossian, come away,'
he says. Fingal has received his fame. We passed
away, like flames that had shone for a season. Our
departure was in reno^vn . Though the plains of our
battles are dark and silent ; our fame is in the foiu: