MELILCOMA. What sound is that on Ardven? Who is that bright in the vale? Who comes like the strength of rivers, when their crowded waters glitter to the moon?

COMALA. Who is it but the foe of Comala, the son of the king of the world? Ghost of Fingal! do thou, from thy cloud, direct Comala's bow. Let him fall like the hart of the desert. It is Fingal in the crowd of his ghosts. Why dost thou come, my love, to frighten and please my soul?

FINGAL. Raise, ye bards, the song; raise the wars of the streamy Carun! Caracul has fled from our arms along the fields of his pride. He sets far distant like a meteor that incloses a spirit of night, when the winds drive it over the heath, and the dark woods are gleaming around. I heard a voice, or was it the breeze of my hills? Is it the huntress of Ardven, the white-handed daughter of Sarno? Look from thy rocks, my love; let me hear the voice of Comala !

COMALA. Take me to the cave of thy rest, O lovely son of death!

FINGAL. Come to the cave of my rest. The storm is past, the sun is on our fields. Come to the cave of my rest, huntress of echoing Ardven.

COMALA. He is returned with his fame! I feel the right hand of his wars! But I must rest beside the rock till my soul returns from my fear! O let the harp be near! raise the song, ye daughters of Morni!

DERSAGRENA. Comala has slain three deer on Ardven, the fire ascends on the rock; go to the feast of Comala, king of the woody Morven !

FINGAL. Raise, ye sons of song, the wars of the streamy Carun, that my white-handed maid may rejoice, while I behold the feast of my love.

BARDS. Roll, streamy Carun, roll in joy, the sons of battle fled! The steed is not seen on our fields; the wings of their pride spread in other lands. The sun will now rise in peace, and the shadows descend in joy. The voice of the chase will be heard; the shields hang in the hall. Our delight will be in the war of the ocean, our hands shall grow red in the blood of Lochlin. Roll, streamy Carun, roll in joy, the sons of battle fled!

MELILCOMA. Descend, ye light mists, from high! Ye moon

* Perhaps the poet alludes to the Roman eagle.

beams, lift her soul! Pale lies the maid at the rock! Comala is no more!

FINGAL. Is the daughter of Sarno dead, the white-bosomed maid of my love? Meet me, Comala, on my heaths, when I sit alone at the streams of my hills!

HIDALLAN. Ceased the voice of the huntress of Ardven? Why did I trouble the soul of the maid? When shall I see thee, with joy, in the chase of the dark-brown hinds?

FINGAL. Youth of the gloomy brow! no more shalt thou feast in my halls. Thou shalt not pursue my chase; my foes shall not fall by thy sword.* Lead me to the place of her rest that I may behold her beauty. Pale she lies at the rock, the cold winds lift her hair. Her bow-string sounds in the blast; her arrow was broken in her fall. Raise the praise of the daughter of Sarno! give her name to the winds of heaven!

BARDS. See! meteors gleam around the maid! See! moonbeams lift her soul! Around her, from their clouds, bend the awful faces of her fathers; Sarnot of the gloomy brow; the redrolling eyes of Fidallan! When shall the white hand arise? When shall thy voice be heard on our rocks? The maids shall seek thee on the heath, but they shall not find thee. Thou shalt come at times to their dreams, to settle peace in their soul. Thy voice shall remain in their ears; they shall think with joy on the dreams of their rest. Meteors gleam around the maid, and moonbeams lift her soul!

*The sequel of the story of Hidallan is introduced in another poem.

+ Sarno, the father of Comala, died soon after the flight of his daughter. Fidallan was the first king that reigned in Inistore.

19

CARRIC-THURA.

A POEM.

ARGUMENT.

Fingal, returning from an expedition which he had made into the Roman province, resolved to visit Cathulla, king of Inistore, and brother to Comala, whose story is related, at large, in the preceding dramatic poem. Upon his coming in sight of Carricthura, the palace of Cathulla, he observed a flame on its top, which, in those days, was a signal of distress. The wind drove him into a bay, at some distance from Carricthura, and he was obliged to pass the night on the shore. Next day he attacked the army of Frothal, king of Sora, who had besieged Cathulla in his palace of Carricthura, and took Frothal himself prisoner, after he had engaged him in single combat. The deliverance of Carric-thura is the subject of the poem; but several other episodes are interwoven with it. It appears from tradition, that this poem was addressed to a Culdee, or one of the first Christian missionaries, and that the story of the Spirit of Loda, supposed to be the ancient Odin of Scandinavia, was introduced by Ossian, in opposition to the Culdee's doctrine. Be this as it will, it lets us into Ossian's notions of a superior being; and shows that he was not addicted to the superstition which prevailed all the world over, before the introduction of Christianity.

HAST* thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-haired son of the sky? The west has opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves come to behold thy beauty. They lift their trembling heads. They see thee lovely in thy sleep; they shrink away with fear. Rest in thy shadowy cave, O sun! let thy return be in joy.

But let a thousand lights arise to the sound of the harps of Selma; let the beam spread in the hall, the king of shells is returned ! The strife of Crona is past,† like sounds that are no

*The song of Ullin, with which the poem opens, is in lyric measure. It was usual with Fingal, when he returned from his expeditions, to send his bards singing before him. This species of triumph is called, by Ossian, the song of victory.

+ Ossian has celebrated the strife of Crona in a particular poem. This poem is connected with it, but it was impossible for the translator to procure that part which relates to Crona with any degree of purity.

more. Raise the song, O bards! The king is returned, with his fame!

Such were the words of Ullin, when Fingal returned from war: when he returned in the fair blushing of youth, with all his heavy locks. His blue arms were on the hero; like a light cloud on the sun when he moves in his robes of mist, and shows but half his beams. His heroes follow the king: the feast of shells is spread. Fingal turns to his bards, and bids the song to rise.

Voices of echoing Cona! he said, O bards of other times! Ye, on whose souls the blue hosts of our fathers rise! strike the harp in my hall! and let me hear the song. Pleasant is the joy of grief! it is like the shower of spring, when it softens the branch of the oak, and the young leaf rears its head. Sing on, O bards! to-morrow we lift the sail. My blue course is through the ocean, to Carric-thura's walls, the mossy walls of Sarno, where Comala dwelt. There the noble Cathulla spreads the feast of shells. The boars of his woods are many, the sound of the chase shall arise!

Cronnan,* son of the song! said Ullin, Minona, graceful at the harp! raise the tale of Shilric, to please the king of Morven. Let Vinvela come in her beauty, like the showery bow, when it shows its lovely head on the lake, and the setting sun is bright. She comes, O Fingal! her voice is soft but sad.

VINVELA. My love is a son of the hill. He pursues the flying deer. His gray dogs are panting around him: his bow-string sounds in the wind. Dost thou rest by the fount of the rock, or by the noise of the mountain-stream? The rushes are nodding to the wind, the mist flies over the hill. I will approach my love unseen; I will behold him from the rock. Lovely I saw thee first by the aged oak of Branno ;† thou wert returning tall from the chase, the fairest among thy friends.

SHILRIC. What voice is that I hear? that voice like the summer-wind! I sit not by the nodding rushes; I hear not the fount

* One should think that the parts of Shilric and Vinvela were represented by Cronnan and Minona, whose very names denote that they were singers who performed in public. Cronnan signifies a mournful sound, Minona, or Min'oun, soft air. All the dramatic poems of Ossian appear to have been presented before Fingal upon solemn occasions. † Bran, or Branno, signifies a mountain-stream: it is here some river known by that name, in the days of Ossian. There are several small rivers in the north of Scotland still retaining the name of Bran; in particular one which falls into the Tay at Dunkeld.

of the rock. Afar, Vinvela,* afar, I go to the wars of Fingal. My dogs attend me no more. No more I tread the hill. No more from on high I see thee, fair moving by the stream of the plain; bright as the bow of heaven; as the moon on the western wave.

VINVELA. Then thou art gone, O Shilric! I am alone on the hill! The deer are seen on the brow; void of fear they graze along. No more they dread the wind; no more the rustling tree. The hunter is far removed; he is in the field of graves. Strangers! sons of the waves! spare my lovely Shilric!

SHILRIC. If fall I must in the field, raise high my grave, Vinvela. Gray stones and heaped-up earth shall mark me to future times. When the hunter shall sit by the mound, and produce his food at noon, "Some warrior rests here," he will say; and my fame shall live in his praise. Remember me, Vinvela, ,when low on earth I lie!

VINVELA. Yes! I will remember thee; alas! my Shilric will fall! What shall I do, my love! when thou art for ever gone? Through these hills I will go at noon: I will go through the silent heath. There I will see the place of thy rest, returning from the chase. Alas! my Shilric will fall; but I will remember Shilric.

And I remember the chief, said the king of woody Morven ; he consumed the battle in his rage. But now my eyes behold him not. I met him, one day, on the hill; his cheek was pale; his brow was dark. The sigh was frequent in his breast; his steps were towards the desert. But now he is not in the crowd of my chiefs, when the sounds of my shields arise. Dwells he in the narrow house,† the chief of high Carmora ?

He

Cronnan! said Ullin of other times, raise the song of Shilric; when he returned to his hills, and Vinvela was no more. leaned on her gray mossy stone: he thought Vinvela lived. He saw her fair moving§ on the plain; but the bright form lasted not; the sunbeam fled from the field, and she was seen no more. Hear the song of Shilric, it is soft but sad!

I sit by the mossy fountain; One tree is rustling above me. The lake is troubled below.

on the top of the hill of winds.

Dark waves roll over the heath. The deer descend from the hill.

* Bhin-bheul, a woman with a melodious voice. Bh, in the Gaelic language, has the same sound with the v in English.

†The grave.

Carn-mor-high rocky hill.

The distinction which the ancient Scots made between good and bad spirits, was, that the former appeared sometimes in the day-time in lonely unfrequented places, but the latter never but by night, and in a dismal gloomy scene.