Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

136 OSSIAN
and strows its withered leaves on the blast? Why
didst thou come, O Gaul ! to hear my departing sigh ?
I vanish in my youth ; my name shall not be heard.
Or it wnll be heard with grief; the tears of Nuath must
fall. Thou wilt be sad, son of Morni ! for the departed
fame of Oithona. But she shall sleep in the narrow
tomb, far from the voice of the mourner. Why didst
thou come, chief of Strumon 1 to the sea-beat rocks
of Tromathon ? "
" I came to meet thy foes, daughter of car-borte
Nuath ! the death of Cuthals chief darkens before me ;
or Morni's son shall fall ! Oithona ! when Gaul is lew,
raise my tomb on that oozy rock. When the dirk-
bounding ship shall pass, call the sons of the sea ! call
them, and give this sword, to bear it hence to Mjrni's
hall. The grey-haired chief will then cease to look
towards the desert, for the return of his son I "
"Shall the daughter of Nuath live?" she replied
with a bursting sigh. "Shall I live in Tromathon, and
the son of Morni low ? My heart is not of that rock ;
nor my soul careless as that sea, which lifts its blue
waves to every wind, and rolls beneath the storm I
The blast which shall lay thee low, shall spread the
branches of Oithona on earth. We shall wither to-
gether, son of car-borne Morni 1 The narrow house
is pleasant to me, and the grey stone of the dead : for
never more will I leave thy rocks, O sea-surrounded
Tromathon ! Night * came on with her clouds, after the
departure of Lathmon, when he went to the wars of
his fathers, to the moss-covered rock of Duthormoth.
Night came on. I sat in the hall at the beam of the
oak I The wind was abroad in the trees. I heard the
sound of arms. Joy rose in my face. I thought of thy
return. It was the chief of Cuthal, the red-haired
strength of Dunrommath. His eyes rolled in fire : the
* Oithona relates how she was carried away by Dunrommath.