Borbar-duthul's eyes had failed. Yet was the king a sun to his friends; a gale to lift their branches round. Joy was around him in his halls he loved the sons of Bolga. His name remains in Atha, like the awful memory of ghosts, whose presence was terrible; but they blew the storm away. Now let the voices of Erin raise the soul of the king; he that shone when war was dark, and laid the mighty low. Fonar, from that grey-browed rock, pour the tale of other times; pour it on the wide-skirted Erin, as it settles round." "To me," said Cathmor, "no song shall rise; nor Fonar sit on the rock of Lubar. The mighty there are laid low. Disturb not their rushing ghosts. Far, Malthos, far remove the sound of Erin's song. I rejoice not over the foe, when he ceases to lift the spear. With morning we pour our strength abroad. Fingal is wakened on his echoing hill." Like waves, blown back by sudden winds", 16 Like waves blown back by sudden winds.] Par. Lost, i. @22. On each hand the flames Driven backward, slope their pointed spires, and rolled Erin retired at the voice of the king. Deep-rolled into the field of night, they spread their humming tribes". Beneath his own tree, at intervals, each bard sat down with his harp. They raised the song, and touched the string: each to the chief he loved. Before a burning oak Sulmalla touched, at times, the harp. She touched the harp, and heard, between, the breezes in her .hair. In darkness near, lay the king of Atha, beneath an aged tree. The beam of the oak was turned from him; he saw the maid, but was not seen. His soul poured forth, in secret, when he beheld her fearful eye. "But battle is before thee, son of Borbar-duthul.” Amidst the harp, at intervals, she listened whether the warrior slept. Her soul was up; she longed, in secret, to pour her own sad song. The field is silent. On their wings, the blasts of 17 Deep rolled into the field of night, they spread their humming tribes.] See above 14, and ii. 17. From DRYDEN's Virgil, vi. 957. Thick as the humming bees that hunt the golden dew The winged army roams the field around; The rivers and the rocks remurmur to the sound. Hence Gray's line in the Progress of Poesy. The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar. night retire. The bards had ceased; and meteors came, red-winding with their ghosts. The sky grew dark; the forms of the dead were blended with the clouds. But heedless bends the daughter of Conmor, over the decaying flame. Thou wert alone in her soul, car-borne chief of Atha. She raised the voice of the song, and touched the harp between. "Clun-galo 18 came; she missed the maid. Where art thou, beam of light? Hunters, from the mossy rock, saw ye the blue-eyed fair? Are her steps on grassy Lumon, near the bed of roes? Ah me! I behold her bow in the hall. Where art thou, beam of light ?" "Cease 1, love of Conmor, cease; I hear thee not on the ridgy heath. My eye is turned to the king, whose path is terrible in war. He for whom my soul is up, in the season of my rest. Deep-bosomed in war he stands 20, he beholds 18 Clun-galo, white knee, the wife of Conmór, king of Inishuna, and the mother of Sul-malla. She is here represented as missing her daughter, after she had fled with Cathmor. MAC PHERSON. 19 Sul-malla replies to the supposed questions of her mother. MACPHERSON. 20 Deep-bosomed in war he stands.] "Bosomed high in tuft me not from his cloud. Why, sun of Sul-malla, dost thou not look forth? I dwell in darkness here; wide over me flies the shadowy mist. Filled with dew are my locks": look thou from thy cloud, O sun of Sul-malla's soul." * * * ed trees." MILTON. Converted, in Ossian, into high-bosomed maids, from Homer's Aagdandes Bobuxonwo. “Deep-bosomed Dardanian dames." MACPHERSON's Homer, ii. 213.-25. By the usual transposition ef epithets, Milton's bosomed high is applied to women, and Homer's deep-bosomed to war. 21 Filled with dew are my locks.] For my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. Song of Solomon, v. 2. |