Ossian Collection > Temora, an ancient epic poem, in eight books

7? T E M O R A:
turned away. — This is no time, king of Atha, to wake thy fecret
foul. The battle is rolled before thee, like a troubled ftream.
He ftruck that warning bofs *, wherein dwelt the voice of war.
Erin rofe around him like the found of eagle-wings. — Sul-malla
flarted from fleep, in her difordered locks. She feized the helmet
from earth, and trembled in her place. Why fliould they know
in Erin of the daughter of Inis-huna ? for (he remembered the
race of kings, and the pride of her foul arofe.
Her fteps are behind a rock, by the blue-winding rtream -f- of a
vale ; where d\^•elt the dark-brown hind ere yet tlie war arofe.
Thither came the voice of Cathmor, at times, to Sul-malla's ear.
Her foul is darkly fad j flie pours her words on wind.
^ The dreams of Inis-huna departed: they are rolled away from.
my foul. I hear not the chace in my land. I am concealed in
the flcirt of war. I look forth from my cloud, but no beam ap-
pears to light my path. I behold my warrior low ; for the broad-
* In order to underftand this paffage, it thefe lyric pieces lofe moft, by a literal profe
is neceflary to look to the defcription of tranflation, as the beauty of ihem does not
Cathmor's fhield, which the poet has given fo much depend, on the ftre.ngth of thought,
us in the feventh book. This fliield had as on the elegance of expreffion and har-
feven principal boffes, the found of each mony of numbers. It has been obferved,
of which, when ftruck with a fpear, con- that an author is put to the fevereft teft,
veyed a particular order from the king to when he is ftript of the ornaments of ver-
bis tribes. The found of one of them, fification, and delivered down in another
as here, was the fignal for the army to language in profe. Thofe, therefore, who
aflcmble. have feen how awkward a figure even Ho-
t This was not the valley of Lena to mer and Virgil make, in a verfion of this
which Sul-malla afterwards retired. fort, will think the better of the compofi-
t Of all pafiages in the works of Oflian tions of Offian.
6 Shielded