Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

TEMORA. 461
returned with bending eyes, and dark winding of locks
of mist.
It was dark. The sleeping host were still in the
skirts of night. The flame decayed, on the hill of
Fingal ; the king lay lonely on his shield. His eyes
were half clothed in sleep : the voice of Fillan came.
" Sleeps the husband of Clatho ? Dwells the father
of the fallen in rest ? Am I forgot in the folds of dark-
ness ; lonely in the season of night ?"
" Why dost thou mix," said the king, " with the
dreams of my father ? Can I forget thee, my son, or
thy path of fire in the field ? Not such come the deeds
of the valiant on the soul of Fingal. They are not
there a beam of lightning, which is seen and is then no
more. I remember thee, O Fillan! and my wrath be-
gins to rise."
The king took his deathful spear, and struck the
deeply-sounding shield : his shield, that hung high in
night, the dismal sign of war. Ghosts fled on eveiy
side, and rolled their gathered forms on the wind.
Thrice from the winding vales arose the voice of deaths.
The harps of the bards, untouched, sound mournful
over the hill.
He struck again the shield ; battles rose in the
dreams of his host. The wide-tumbling strife is gleam-
ing over their souls. Blue-shielded kings descended to
war. Backward-looking armies fly ; and mighty deeds
are half hid in the b ight gleams of steel.
But when the thiid sound arose, deer started from
the clefts of their rocks. The screams of fowl are
heard in the desert, as each flew frightened on his blast.
The sons of Selma half rose and half assumed their
spears. But silence rolled back on the host : they
knew the shield of the king. Sleep returned to their
eyes; the field was dark and still.
No sleep was thine in darkness, blue-eyed daughter
39*