Fingal, and saw the rising maid: they stood in silence, in their beauty, like two young trees of the plain, when the shower of spring is on their leaves, and the loud winds are laid.

Daughter of Herman, said Frothal, didst thou come from Tora's streams? didst thou come in thy beauty to behold thy warrior low? But he was low before the mighty, maid of the slow rolling eye! The feeble did not overcome the son of car-borne Annir! Terrible art thou, O king of Morven in battles of the spear. But, in peace, thou art like the sun when he looks through a silent shower: the flowers lift their fair heads before him; the gales shake their rustling wings. O that thou wert in Sora! that my feast were spread! The future kings of Sora would see thy arms and rejoice. They would rejoice at the fame of their fathers, who beheld the mighty Fingal !

Son of Annir, replied the king, the fame of Sora's race shall be heard! When chiefs are strong in war, then does the song arise! But if their swords are stretched over the feeble; if the blood of the weak has stained their arms; the bard shall forget them in the song, and their tombs shall not be known. The stranger shall come and build there, and remove the heapedup earth. An half-worn sword shall rise before him; bending above it, he will say, 'These are the arms of the chiefs of old, but their names are not in song.' Come thou, O Frothal! to the feast of Inistore: let the maid of thy love be there; let our faces brighten with joy!

Fingal took his spear, moving in the steps of his might. The gates of Carric-thura are opened wide. The feast of shells is spread. The soft sound of music arose. Gladness brighten

Frothal and Utha.

ed in the hall. The voice of Ullin was heard; the harp of Selma was strung. Utha rejoiced in his presence, and demanded the song of grief; the big tear hung in her eye when the soft Crimora spoke. Crimora, the daughter of Rinval, who dwelt at Lotha's roaring stream! The tale was long, but lovely; and pleased the blushing Utha.

Crimora. Who cometh from the hill, like a cloud tinged with the beam of the west ? Whose voice is that, loud as the wind, but pleasant as the harp of Carril? It is my love in the light of steel; but sad is his darkened brow! Live the mighty race of Fingal ? or what darkens Connal's soul?

Connal. They live. They return from th chase like a stream of light. The sun is on their shields. Like a ridge of fire they descend the hill. Loud is the voice of the youth! the war, my love, is near! To morrow the dreadfu. Dargo comes to try the force of our race. The race of Fingal he defies; the race of battles and wounds!

Crimora. Connal, I saw his sails like gray mist on the dark-brown wave. They slowly came to land. Connal, many are the warriors of Dargo.

Connal. Bring me thy father's shield, the bossy iron shield of Rinval! that shield like the full-orbed moon, when she moves darkened through heaven.

Crimora. That shield I bring, O Connal ! but it did not defend my father. By the spear of Gormar he fell. Thou may'st fall, O Connal!

Connal. Fall I may ! but raise my tomb, Crimora! Gray stones, a mound of earth, shall send my name to other times. Bend thy red eye over my grave, beat thy mournful heaving breast. Though fair thou art, my love, as the light;

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more pleasant than the gale of the hill; yet I will not here remain. Raise, my tomb, Crimora!

Crimora. Then give me those arms that gleam; that sword and that spear of steel. í shall meet Dargo with Connal, and aid him in the fight. Farewell, ye rocks of Ardven! ye deer! and ye streams of the hill! We shall return no more! Our tombs are distant far!

And did they return no more?' said Utha's bursting sigh. Fell the mighty in battle, and did Crimora live? Her steps were lonely; her soul was sad for Connal. Was he not young and lovely; like the beam of the setting sun? Ullin saw the virgin's tear, he took the softly trembling harp the song was lovely, but sad, and silence was in Carric-thura.

:

Autumn is dark on the mountains; gray mist rests on the hills. The whirlwind is heard on the heath. Dark rolls the river through the narrow plain. A tree stands alone on the hill, and marks the slumbering Connal. The leaves whirl round with the wind, and strew the grave of the dead. At times are seen here the ghosts of the departed, when the musing hunter alone stalks slowly the heath. over

Who can reach the source of thy race, O Connal! who recount thy fathers? Thy family grew like an oak on the mountain, which meeteth the wind with its lofty head. But now it is torn from the earth. Who shall supply the place of Connal? Here was the din of arms; here the groans of the dying. Bloody are the wars of Fingal, O Connal! it was here thou didst fall. Thine arm was like a storm; thy sword a beam of the sky; thy height a rock on the plain; thine eyes a furnace of fire. Louder than a storm was thy voice, in the battles of thy steel. Warriors fell by thy sword, as the thistles by the staff of a boy. Dargo the mighty came on, darkened in his rage. His

His eyes like

brows were gathered into wrath. two caves in a rock. Bright rose their swords on each side; loud was the clang of their steel.

The daughter of Rinval was near; Crimora bright in the armour of man; her yellow hair is loose behind, her bow is in her hand. She followed the youth to the war, Connal her muchbeloved. She drew the string on Dargo; but. erring, she pierced her Connal. He falls like an oak on the plain; like a rock from the shaggy hill. What shall she do, hapless maid! He bleeds; her Connal dies! All the night long she cries, and all the day, 'O Connal, my love, and my friend!' With grief the sad mourner dies! Earth here incloses the loveliest pair on the hill. The grass grows between the stones of the tomb: I often sit in the mournful shade. The wind sighs through the grass; their memory rushes or my mind. Undisturbed you now sleep together; in the tomb of the mountain you rest alone!

And soft be their rest, said Utha, hapless children of streamy Lotha! I will remember them with tears, and my secret song shall rise; when the wind is in the groves of Tora, when the stream is roaring near. Then shall they come on my soul, with all their lovely grief!

Three days feasted the kings: on the fourth their white sails arose. The winds of the north drove Fingal to Morven's woody land. But the spirit of Loda sat in his cloud behind the ships of Frothal. He hung forward with all his blasts, and spread the white bosomed sails. The wounds of his form were not forgotten! he still feared the hand of the king!

232

CARTHON.

ARGUMENT.

This poem is complete, and the subject of it, as of most of Ossian's compositions, tragical. In the time of Comhal, the son of Trathal, and fither of the celebrated Fingal, Clessámmor, the son of Thaddu, and brother of Morna, Fingal's mother, was driven by a storm into the river Clyde, on the banks of which stood Balclutha, a town be longing to the Britons, between the walls. He was hospitably received by Reuthámir, the principal man in the place, who gave him Moina, his only daughter, in marriage. Reudo, the son of Cormo, a Briton, who was in love with Moina, came to Reuthámir's house, and be

haved haughtily towards Clessámmor. A quarrel en

sued, in which Reudo was killed; the Britons who atteaded him, pressed so hard on Clessâmmor, that he was obliged to throw himself into the Clyde and swim to his ship. He hoi sted sail, and the wind being favourable, bore him out to sea. He often endeavoured to return, and carry off his beloved Moina by night; but the wind continuing contrary, he was forced to desist.

Moina, who had been left with child by her husband, brought forth a son, and died soon after. Reuthámit named the child Carthon, i. e. the murmur of waves, from the storm which carried off Clessámmor his father, who was supposed to have been cast away. When Car thon was three years old, Comhal, the father of Fingal, in one of his expeditions against the Britons, took and burnt Balclutha Reuthamir was killed in the attack; and Carthon was carried safe away by his nurse, who fled farther into the country of the Britons. Carthon, coming to man's estate, was resolved to revenge the fall of Balclutha on Comhal's posterity. He set sail from the Clyde, and falling on the coast of Morven, defeated two of Fingal's heroes, who came to oppose his progress. He was, at last, unwittingly killed by his father Cles-ámmor, in a single combat. This story is the foundation of the present poem, which opens on the night preceding the death of Carthon, so that what passed before is introduced by way of episode. The poem is addressed to Malvina, the daughter of Toscar.

A TALE of the times of old! The deeds of days of other years.

The murmur of thy streams, O Lora! brings back the memory of the past. The sound of thy woods, Garmallar, is lovely in mine ear. Dost thou not behold, Malvina, a rock with its