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

An epic poem. 147
flreamy Clonra ! Why dofl thou lift the fteel ? — O that we met, m
the ftrife of fong, in thy own rufhy vale ! — Malthos beheld him
low, and darkened as he rufhed along. On either fide of a flream,
we bend in the echoing ftrife. — Heaven comes rolling down :
around burft the voices of fqually winds. — Hills are clothed, at
times, in fire. Thunder rolls in wreaths of mift. — In darknefs
flirunk the foe : Morven's warriors flood aghafi:. — Still I bent over
the ftream, amidft my whittling locks.
Then rofe the voice of Fingal, and the found of the flying foe.
I {aw the king, at times, in lightning, darkly-ftriding in his might.
I ftruck my echoing fliield, and hung forward on the fteps of Al-
necma : the foe is rolled before me, like a wreath of fmoak.
The fun looked forth from his cloud. The hundred ftreams of
Moi-lena flione. Slow rofe the blue columns of mift, againfl: the
glittering hilk — Where are the mighty kings ? * — Nor by that
ftream, nor wood, are they ! — I hear the clang of arms ! — Their
ftrife is in the bofom of that mift. — Such is the contending of fpi-
rits In a nightly cloud, when they ftrive for the wintry wings of
winds, and the rolling of the foam-covered waves.
* Fingal and Cathmor. The conduit could fuftain, with dignity, the niinutia of
of the poet, in this paflage, is remarkable, a fingle combat. The throwing of a fpear.
His numerous defcriptions of fingle com- and the braying of a fhield, as fome of our
bats had already exhaufted the fubjeift. own poets moft elegantly exprefs it, con-
Nothing new, nor adequate to out high Tcy no grand ideas. Our imagination
idea of the kings, could be faid. O/Tian, ftretches beyond, and, confequently, de-
thereforc, throws a column of ml/1 over ihe fpifes, the defcription. It were, therefore,
whole, and leaves the combat to the ima- well, for fome poets, in my opinion, (iho'
gination of the reader. — Poets have almoft it is, perhaps, fomewhat Angular) to have,
univerfally failed in their defcriptions of fometimes, like Oflian, thrown inijl over
this fort. Not all the (trength of Homer their Cngic combats.
U 2 I RUSHEC