Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

472 THE POEMS OF OSSIAN.
low-laid Oscar ? Be the warriors remembered in peace;
when echoing shields are heard no more. Bend, then,
in grief, over the flood, where blows the mountain
breeze. Let them pass on thy soul, the blue-eyed
dwellers of the tomb. But Erin rolls to war ; wide
tumbling, rough, and dark. Lift, Ossian, lift the shield.
I um alone, my son !"
As comes the sudden voice of winds to the becalmed
ship of Inis-huna, and drives it large, along the deep,
dark rider of the wave ; so the voice of Fingal sent
Ossian, tall along the heath. He lifted high his shi-
ning shield, in the dusky wing of war; like the broad,
blank moon, in the skirt of a cloud, before the storms
arise.
Loud, from moss-covered Mora, poured down, at
once, the broad-winged war. Fingal led liis people
forth, king of Morven of streams. On high spreads
the eagle's wing. His gray hair is poured on his
shoulders broad. In thunder are his mighty strides.
He often stood, and saw, behind, the wide-gleaming
rolling of armor. A rock he seemed, gray over with
ice, whose woods are high in wind. Bright streams
leapt from its head, and spread their foam on blasts.
Now he came to Lubar's cave, where Fillan darkly
slept. Bran still lay on the broken shield : the eagle-
wing is strewed by the winds. Bright, from 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 jn
his bending spear.
White-breasted Bran came bounding v/ith joy to the
known path of Fingal. He came, and looked towards
the cave, where the blue-eyed hunter lay, for fie was
■wont to stride, with morning, to the dewy bed of tho
roe. It was then the tears of the king came dowD.
und all his soul was dark. But as the rising wind roil*