"Thou glidest away like receding ships."
So when the hosts of Fingal and Starne approach to battle,
"With murmurs loud, like rivers far,
The race of Torne hither moved."
And when compelled to retire,
"dragging his spear behind,
Cudulin sank in the distant wood,
Like a fire upblazing ere it dies."
Nor did Fingal want a proper audience when he spoke;
"A thousand orators inclined
To hear the lay of Fingal."
The threats too would have deterred a man. Vengeance and terror
were real. Trenmore threatens the young warrior whom he meets on
a foreign strand,
"Thy mother shall find thee pale on the shore,
While lessening on the waves she spies
The sails of him who slew her son."
If Ossian's heroes weep, it is from excess of strength, and not
from weakness, a sacrifice or libation of fertile natures, like
the perspiration of stone in summer's heat. We hardly know that
tears have been shed, and it seems as if weeping were proper only
for babes and heroes. Their joy and their sorrow are made of one
stuff, like rain and snow, the rainbow and the mist. When Fillan
was worsted in fight, and ashamed in the presence of Fingal,
"He strode away forthwith,
And bent in grief above a stream,
His cheeks bedewed with tears.
From time to time the thistles gray
He lopped with his inverted lance."
Crodar, blind and old, receives Ossian, son of Fingal, who comes
to aid him in war; -
"`My eyes have failed,' says he, `Crodar is blind,
Is thy strength like that of thy fathers?
Stretch, Ossian, thine arm to the hoary-haired.'
I gave my arm to the king.
The aged hero seized my hand;
He heaved a heavy sigh;
Tears flowed incessant down his cheek.
`Strong art thou, son of the mighty,
Though not so dreadful as Morven's prince.
