Page:Poems of Ossian.djvu/276

 pierced her side with steel. She fell, like a wreath of snow, which slides from the rocks of Ronan; when the woods are still, and echo deepens in the vale! Then Fingal eyed his valiant chiefs, his valiant chiefs took arms. The gloom of battle roared; Lochlin fled or died. Pale, in his bounding ship he closed the maid of the softest soul. Her tomb ascends on Ardven; the sea roars round her narrow dwelling.

"Blessed be her soul," said Cuthullin; "blessed be the mouth of the song. Strong was the youth of Fingal; strong is his arm of age. Lochlin shall fall again before the king of echoing Morven. Shew thy face from a cloud, O moo! light his white sails on the wave: and if any strong spirit of heaven sits on that low-hung cloud; turnhis dark ships from the rock, thou rider of the storm!"

Such were the words of Cuthullin at the sound of the mountain-stream; when Calmar ascended the hill, the wounded son of Matha. From the field he came in his blood. He leaned on his bending spear. Feeble is the arm of battle! but strong the soul of the hero! "Welcome! O son of Matha," said Connal, "welcome art thou to thy friends! Why bursts that broken sigh, from the breast of him who never feared before? And never, Connal, will he fear, chief of the pointed steel! My soul brightens in danger: in the noise of arms. I am of the race of battle. My fathers never feared.

"Cormar was the first of my race. He sported through the storms of waves. His black skiff bounded on ocean; he travelled on the wings of the wind. A