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TEMORA 293
spear of Temora. * I saw, along Moi-lena, the wild
tumbling of battle ; the strife of death, in gleaming
rows, disjoined and broken round. Fillan is a beam of
fire. From wing to wing is his wasteful course. The
ridges of war melt before him. They are rolled in
smoke, from the fields I
Now is the coming forth of Cathmor, in the armour
of kings ! Dark waves the eagle's wing, above his
helmet of fire. Unconcerned are his steps, as if they
were to the chase of Erin. He raises, at times, his
terrible voice. Erin, abashed, gathers round. Their
souls return back, like a stream. They wonder at the
steps of their fear. He rose, like the beam of the morn-
ing, on a haunted heath : the traveller looks back, with
bending eye, on the field of dreadful forms ! Sudden
from the rock of Moi-lena, are Sul-malla's trembling
steps. An oak takes the spear from her hand. Half-
bent she looses the lance. But then are her eyes on the
king, from amid her wandering locks! No friendly strife
is before thee ! No light contending of bows, as when
the youth of Inis-hunaf come forth beneath the eye of
Conmor !
As the rock of Runo, which takes the passing clouds
as they fly, seems growing, in gathered darkness, over
the streamy heath : so seems the chief of Atha taller, as
gather his people around. As different blasts fly over
the sea, each behind its dark blue wave : so Cathmor's
* The spear of Tcmo>-a was that which Oscar had received
in a present from Cormac, the son of Artho, king of Ireland. It
was of it that Cairbar made the pretext for quarrelling with
Oscar at the feast in the first book.
t Clu-ba, ■winding hay ; an arm of the sea in Inis-huna, or
the western coast of South Britain. It was in this bay that
Cathmor was wind-bound when Sul-malla came, in the disguise
of a young warrior, to accompany him in his voyage to Ireland.
Conmor the father of Sul-malla, as is insinuated at the close of
the fourth book, was dead before the departure of his daughter.
M.