Page:Poems of Ossian.djvu/362

286. Fingal himself would have been low, and sorrow dwelling in Selmo?" Her shield fell from Dar-thula's arm. Her breast of snow appeared. It appeared; but it was stained with blood. An arrow was fixed in her side. She fell on the fallen Nathos, like a wreath of snow! Her hair spreads wide on his face. Their blood is mixing round! "Daughter of Colla! thou art low!" said Cairbar's hundred bards. "Silence is at the blue streams of Selâma. Truthil's race have failed. When wilt thou rise in thy beauty, first of Erin's maids? Thy sleep is long in the tomb. The morning distant far. The sun shall not come to thy bed and say, 'Awake, Dar-thula! awake thou first of women! the wind of spring is abroad. The flowers shake their heads on the green hills. The winds wave their growing leaves.' Retire, O sun! the daughter of Colla is asleep. She will not come forth in her beauty. She will not move in the steps of her loveliness!"

Such was the song of the bards, when they raised the tomb. I sung over the grave, when the king of Morven came; when he came to green Erin to fight with the car-borne Cairbar!