Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

CATH-LODA 7
own dark streams, father of Corban-càrgla ! But I
behold thee, chief of Lulan, sporting by Loda's hall,
when the dark-skirted night is rolled along the sky.—
Thou, sometimes, hidest the moon with thy shield, I
have seen her dim, in heaven. Thou kindlest thy hair
into meteors, and sailest along the night. Why am I
forgot, in my cave, king of shaggy boars? Look from
the hall of Loda, on thy lonely daughter."
"Who art thou," said Fingal, "voice of night?"
She, trembling, turned away.
"Who art thou, in thy darkness?"
She shrunk into the cave.
The king loosed the thong from her hands. He
asked about her fathers.
"Torcul-torno," she said, "once dwelt at Lulan's
foamy stream : he dwelt— but, now, in Loda's hall, he
shakes the sounding shell. He met Starno of Lochlin,
in war ; long fought the dark-eyed kings. My father
fell, in his blood, blue-shielded Torcul-torno! By a rock,
at Lulan's stream, I had pierc'd the bounding roe. My
white hand gathered my hair, from off the rushing
winds. I heard a noise. Mine eyes were up. My soft
breast rose on high. My step was forward, at Lulan,
to meet thee, Torcul-torno 1 It was Starno, dreadful
king 1 His red eyes rolled on me in love. Dark waved
with the danger of the chase. A quarrel arose, the kmgs came
to battle, with all their attendants, and the party of Torcul-torno
were totally defeated, and he himself slain. Starno pursued his
victory, laid waste the district of Crathlun, and, coming to the
residence of Torcul-torno, carried off, by force, Corban-carglas,
the beautiful daughter of his enemy. Her he confined in a cave,
near the palace of Gormal, where, on account of her cruel
treatment, she became distracted.
The paragraph just now before us is the song of Corban-
carglas, at the time she was discovered by Fingal. It is in lyric
measure, and set to music, which is wild and simple, and so
inimitably suited to the situation of the unhappy lady that few
can hear it without tears.