Page:Poems of Ossian.djvu/83

Rh shaggy brow, above his gathered smile. Where is my father, I said, he that was mighty in war? Thou art left alone among foes, O daughter of Torcul-torno! He took my hand. He raised the sail. In this cave he placed me dark. At times, he comes, a gathered mist. He lifts, before me, my father's shield. But often passes a beam of youth, far distant from my cave. The son of Starno moves in my sight. He dwells lonely in my soul."

"Maid of Lulan," said Fingal, "white-handed daughter of grief! a cloud, marked with streaks of fire, is rolled along thy soul. Look not to that dark-robed moon; look not to those meteors of heaven. My gleaming steel is around thee, the terror of thy foes! It is not the steel of the feeble, nor of the dark in soul! The maids are not shut in our caves of streams. They bend, fair within their locks, above the harps of Selma. Their voice is not in the desert wild. We melt along the pleasing sound!"

Fingal, again, advanced his steps, wide through the bosom of night, to where the trees of Loda shook amid squally winds. Three stones, with heads of moss, are there; a stream, with foaming course; and dreadful, rolled around them, is the dark-red cloud of Loda. High from its top looked forward a ghost, half formed of the shadowy smoke. He poured his voice, at times, amidst the roaring stream. Near, bending beneath a blasted tree two heroes received his words: Swaran of lakes, and