Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

44 OSSIAN
meet Lochlin and Innis-fail. Chief mixes his strokes
with chief, and man with man ; steel, clanging, sounds
on steel. Helmets are cleft on high. Blood bursts and
smokes around. Strings murmur on the polished yews.
Darts rush along the sky. Spears fall like the circles
of light, which gild the face of night. As the noise of
the troubled ocean, when roll the waves on high. As
the last peal of thunder in heaven, such is the din of war !
Though Cormac's hundred bards were there to give the
fight to song ; feeble was the voice of a hundred bards to
send the deaths to future times ! For many were the
deaths of heroes ; wide poured the blood of the brave !
Mourn, ye sons of song, mourn the death of the
noble Sithàllin.* Let the sighs of Fiona arise, on the
lone plains of her lovely Ardan. They fell, like two
hinds of the desert, by the hands of the mighty Swaran ;
when, in the midst of thousands, he roared ; like the
shrill spirit of a storm. He sits dim, on the clouds
of the north, and enjoys the death of the mariner.
Nor slept thy hand by thy side, chief of the isle of
mist ! t many were the deaths of thine arm, Cuthullin,
thou son of Semo ! His sword was like the beam of
heaven when it pierces the sons of the vale ; when the
people are blasted and fall, and all the hills are burning
around. DufronnalJ snorted over the bodies of heroes.
Sifadda§ bathed his hoof in blood. The battle lay be-
hind them, as groves overturned in the desert of Cromla,
when the blast has passed the heath, laden with the
spirits of night !
Weep on the rocks of roaring winds, O maid of
* Sithallin signifies a handsome man ; Fiona, a fair maid;
and Ardan, pride.
t The Isle of Sky ; not improperly called the isle of mist, as
its high hills which catch the clouds from the western ocean,
occasion almost continual rains.
X One of Cuthullin's horses. Dubhstron-gheal.
§ Sith-fadda — i.e. a long stride.