Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

FINGAL 85
Lubar,* or the wind of the echoing Cromla ; when the
branchy forests of night are torn from all their rocks !
Happy are thy people, O Fingal ! thine arm shall finish
their wars. Thou art the first in their dangers; the
wisest in the days of their peace. Thou speakest, and
thy thousands obey : armies tremble at the sound of
thy steel. Happy are thy people, O Fingal ! king of
resounding Selma 1 Who is that so dark and terrible
coming in the thunder of his course ? who but Starno's
son to meet the king of Morven? Behold the battle of
the chiefs ! It is the storm of the ocean, when two
spirits meet far distant, and contend for the rolling of
waves. The hunter hears the noise on his hill. He
sees the high billows advancing to Ardven's shore !
Such were the words of Connal when the heroes met
in fight. There was the clang of arms ! their every
blow like the hundred hammers of the furnace ! Terrible
is the battle of the kings ; dreadful the look of their
eyes. Their dark -brown shields are cleft in twain.
Their steel flies, broken, from their helms. They fling
their weapons down. Each rushes to his hero's grasp :
their sinewry arms bend round each other : they turn
from side to side, and strain and stretch their large
spreading limbs below. But when the pride of their
strength arose, they shook the hill with their heels.
Rocks tumble from their places on high ; the green-
headed bushes are overturned. At length the strength
of Swaran fell ; the king of the groves is bound. Thus
have I seen on Cona ; but Cona I behold no more ! thus
have I seen two dark hills, removed from their place, by
the strength of the bursting stream. They turn from side
to side in their fall ; their tall oaks meet one another on
high. Then they tumble together with all their rocks
* The Lubar — Six-mile water, — is the largest stream near
Cromla — Cave-hill, — and runs through the healh of Lena, at the
south foot of the hill Mora — it flows into Lochneagh, — the lake
of roes of Ossian ! C.