The rocks are gray on the steep, I see but more sweet is the voice I hear. It is bim not on the brow. His dogs come not the voice of Alpin, the son of song, mournbefore him, with tidings of bis near ap- ing for the dead! Bent is his head of age ; proach. Here I must sit alone!

red his tearful eye. Alpin, thou son of " Who lie on the heath beside me ?

song, why alone on the silent hill ? why Are they my love, and my brother? Speak complainest thou, as a blast in the wood; to me, O my friends! To Colma they as a wave on the lonely shore ? give no reply. Speak to me; I am alone! “ Alpin. My tears, O Ryno ! are for the My soul is tormented with fears! Ah! dead; my voice for those that have passed they are dead! Their swords are red from

away. Tall thou art on the hill ; fair the fight. O my brother ! my brother ! among the sons of the vale. But thou shalt why hast thou slain my Salgar? why, O fall like Morar; the mourner shall sit on Salgar ! hast thou slain my brother ? Dear thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no were ye both to me! what shall I say in more; thy bow shall lie in the hall unyour praise ? Thou wert fair on the hill strung ! among thousands ! he was terrible in fight. " Thou were swift, O Morar! as a roe Speak to me; hear my voice; hear me, on the desert; terrible as a meteor of sons of my love! They are silent; silent fire. Thy wrath was as the storm. Thy for ever! Cold, cold, are their breasts of sword in battle, as lightning in the field. clay! Oh! from the rock on the hill, from Thy voice was a stream after rain ; like the top of the windy steep, speak, ye ghosts thunder on distant hills. Many fell by of the dead ! speak, I will not be afraid ! thy arm; they were consumed in the Whither are ye gone to rest?

In what

flames of thy wrath. But when thou cave of the hill shall I find the departed ? didst return from war, how peaceful was No feeble voice is on the gale : no answer thy brow! Thy face was like the sun balf-drowned in the storm !

after rain ; like the moon in the silence “I sit in my grief ; I wait for morning in of night ; calm as the breast of the lake my tears! Rear the tomb, ye friends of when the loud wind is laid. the dead. Close it not till Colma come. “ Narrow is thy dwelling now ! dark the My life flies away like a dream: why should place of thine abode!

With three steps I stay behind ?

Here shall I rest with my I compass thy grave, O thou who wast so friends, by the stream of the sounding rock. great before !

Four stones, with their When night comes on the hill; when the heads of moss, are the only memorial of loud winds arise; my ghost sball stand in thee. A tree with scarce a leaf, long the blast, and mourn the death of my grass, which whistles in the wind, mark friends. The hunter shall hear from his to the hunter's eye the grave of the booth. He shall fear but love

my

voice ! mighty Morar. Morar! thou art low For sweet shall my voice be for my friends: indeed! Thou hast no mother to mourn pleasant were her friends to Colma!

thee ; no maid with her tears of love. « Our tears descended for Colma,

Dead is she that brought thee forth, Fallen and our souls were sad," saith Ossian

is the daughter of Morglan. ;

“ Who on his staff is this? who is this and well they might-for nothing can

whose head is white with age ; whose eyes be more mournful than thy song, Mi.

are red with tears ; who quakes at every nona. Then came Ullin with his

step? It is thy father, O Morar! the fa. harp, and he gave the song of Alpin. ther of no son but thee. He heard of thy In former days he had overheard Al

fame in war; he heard of foes dispersed. pin and Ryno on the hill singing the He heard of Morar's renown; why did he fall of Morar, and had received the

not hear of his wound ? Weep, thou fasong into his heart. Now they both ther of Morar! weep; but thy son heareth rest in the narrow house-and Mi.

thee not. Deep is the sleep of the dead; nona's eyes are full of tears--the sister low their pillow of dust. No more shall of car-borne Morar. or She retired he hear thy voice; no more awake at thy from the song of Ullin, like the moon call. When shall it be morn in the grave, in the west, when she foresees the to bid the slumberer awake ? Farewell, shower, and hides her fair head in a thou bravest of men ! thou conqueror in cloud. I touched the harp with Ullin ;

the field; but the field shall see thee no the song of mourning rose.

nor the dark wood be lightened

6

is sublime, and was probably in Beat- the breathing gale. Arindal, thy bow was tie's mind when he wrote

strong. Thy spear was swift in the field.

Thy look was like mist on the wave: thy “ But when shall spring visit the moulder- shield, a red cloud in a storm. Armar, ing urn?

renowned in war, came, and sought Daura's Oh, when shall it dawn on the night of the

love. He was not long refused : fair was grave ?

the hope of their friends! Ha! we are startled to see these lines

Erath, son of Odgal, repined : his brother

had been slain by Armar. He came disquoted by Laing, and remarked on with a true and fine feeling_" The guised like a son of the sea : fair was his

skiff on the wave ; white his locks of age; spring' dawning, instead of the

calm his serious brow. Fairest of women, « morning 'on the night of the grave' he said, lovely daughter of Armin ! a rock is certainly no improvement." But

not distant in the sea bears a tree on what can the man mean by this? its side ; red shines the fruit afar! There Alpin says—“ Weep, thou father of Armar waits for Daura. I come to carry Morar! weep, but thy son heareth his love ! She went; she called on Armar. thee not. Deep is the sleep of the Nought answered, but the son of the rock. dead; low their pillow of dust. No Armar, my love! my love ! why tormentest more shall he hear thy voice-no thou me with fear! hear, son of Arpart, more awake at thy call!" This lahear : it is Daura who caileth thee! Erath mentation, he affirms, is an imitation the traitor fled laughing to the land. She of_

lifted up her voice ; she called for her bro

ther and her father. Arindal! Armin ! none “ The breezy call of incense-breathing to relieve your Daura ! morn,

“ Her voice came over the sea. Arindal The swallow twittering from the straw- my son descended from the hill; rough in built shed,

the spoils of the chase. His arrows rattled The cock's shrill clarion, and the echoing by his side ; his bow was in his band : five horn,

dark gray dogs attended his steps. He saw No more shall rouse them from their lowly fierce Erath on the shore: he seized and bed.”

bound him to an oak. Thick wind the

thongs of the hide around his limbs : he loads Gray, he adds, when the Fragments the wind with his groans. Arindal ascends were communicated to him, was uncon.

the deep in his boat, to bring Daura to land. scious of his own poetry, so complete was Armar came in his wrath, and let fly the the deception!!

gray-feathered shaft, It sunk, it suok in At the close of the song of Alpin, thy heart, 0 Arindal, my son! for Erath the grief of all arose, but most the the traitor thou diedst. The oar is stopped bursting sigh of Armin—for he ré- at once ; he panted on the rock and expired. membered the death of his son, who What is thy grief, 0 Daura, when round fell in the days of his youth. Why thy feet is poured thy brother's blood! The art thou sad, 0 Armin, chief of sea- boat is broken in twain. Armar plunges into surrounded Gorma? asked Carmor, the sea, to rescue his Daura, or die. Sudden the chief of the echoing Galmal.

a blast from the hill came over the waves.

He sunk, and he rose no more. “ Sad I am ! nor small is my cause of “ Alone, on the seabeat rock, my daughwoe! Carmor, thou hast lost no son ; thou ter was heard to complain, Frequent and hast lost no daughter of beauty. Colgar loud were her cries. What could her father the valiant lives; and Annira, fairest maid. do? AH night I stood on the shore. I saw The boughs of thy house ascend, O Car. her by the faint beam of the moon. All mor ; but Armin is the last of his race.

night I heard her cries. Loud was the wind; Dark is thy bed, 0 Daura ! deep thy sleep the rain beat hard on the bill. Before in the tomb! When shalt thou awake with morning appeared, her voice was weak. It thy songs? with all thy voice of music? died away, like the evening breeze among

“ Arise, winds of autumn, arise; blow the grass of the rocks: Spent with grief along the heath! streams of the mountains, she expired ; and left thee, Armin, alone.

But memory

a

They do not regard their father. I am sad, of age ! lovely the remnant of his years! O Carmor, nor small is my cause of woe. Perhaps it is the husband of Moina, the

“ Such were the words of the bards in the father of car-borne Carthon. Often have I days of song; when the king heard the music heard that he dwelt at the echoing stream of harps, the tales of other times! The of Lora.' chiefs gathered from all their hills, and heard “ Such were his words when Clessamthe lovely sound. They praised the voice mor came, and lifted liigh his spear. The of Cona! the first among a thousand bards ! youth received it on his shield, and spoke but age is now on my tongue; my soul has

the words of peace.

Warrior of the failed: I hear, at tiines, the ghosts of bards, aged locks! is there no youth to list the and learn their pleasant song.

spear? Hast thou no son to raise the fails on my mind. I hear the call of years ;

shield before his father to meet the arm of they say, as they pass along, Why does youth? Is the spouse of thy love no more? Ossian sing ? Soon shall he lie in the nar- or weeps she over the tombs of thy sons ? row house, and no bard shall raise his fame!

Art thou of the kings of men ? What will Roll on, ye dark brown years; ye bring no be the fame of my sword shouldst thou joy on your course! Let the tomb open to fall ? ' Ossian, for his strength has failed. The

" It will be great, thou son of pride ! sons of song are gone to rest. My voice

began the tall Clessammor. I have been remains, like a blast, that roars, lonely, on renowned in battle, but I never told my a sea-surrounded rock, after the winds are

name to a foe. Yield to me, son of the Jaid. The dark moss whistles there ; the

wave, then shalt thou know that the mark distant mariner sees the waving trees !" of my sword is in many a field. ' I never Carthon is a noble strain, and con

yielded, king of spears !' replied the noble tains some of the finest descriptions in pride of Carthon : • I have also fought in all Ossian. Clessammor, an uncle of

war, I behold my future fame. Despise

me not, thou chief of men ! my arm, my Fingal by the mother's side, had been

spear is strong. Retire among thy friends; driven by a storm into the river

let younger heroes fight.' Why dost thou Clyde, on the banks of which stood

wound my soul? replied Ciessammor with Balclutha, “ a town belonging to the

à tear. Age does not tremble on my hand. Britons within the walls." Here he

I still can lift the sword. Shall I fly in marries Moina, daughter of Reutha

Fingal's sight, in the sight of him I love ? mir, a chief; but is driven away in his a

Son of the sea! I never fled: exalt thy ship soon after his nuptials by Renda, pointed spear. a Briton, who was in love with Moina. " They fought, like two contending Moina, who had been left with child, winds, that strive to roll the wave. Carbrought forth a son, and soon after thon bade his spear to err : he still thought died-and he is reared by Reuthamir, that the foe was the spouse of Moina. He and called Carthon, the murmur of the broke Clessammor’s beamy spear in twain : waves, from the storm which carried he seized his shining sword. But as Caroff Clessammor, who was supposed to

thon was binding the chief, the chief drew have been cast away.

the dagger of his fathers. He saw the In Carthon's childhood Balclutha

foe's uncovered side, and opened there a had been burnt by Comhal, Fingal's

wound. father, and having come to man's es- “ Fingal saw Clessammor low: he tate, he resolves to avenge its fate on

moved in the sound of his steel. The host the posterity of the destroyer. He

stood silent in his presence : they turned invades Morvern, and, after defeating their eyes to the king, He came like the two of Fingal's heroes, is killed in

sullen noise of a storm before the winds single combat by his own father Cles

arise : the hunter hears it in the vale, and

retires to the cave of the rock. Carthon In this poem occurs the celebrated description, “ I have seen

stood in his place, the blood is rushing the walls of Balclutha, but they were

down his side; he saw the coming down

of the king, his hopes of fame arose, but desolate,"? &c.-of itself, in its scrip- pale was his cheek : his hair flew loose, his tural sublimity, sufficient to immortal

helmet shook on high: the force of Carize its poet.

thon failed, but his sword was strong. " Carthon stood on a rock: he saw the “ Fingal heheld the hero's blood; he hero rushing on. He loved the dreadful stopt the uplifted spear. • Yield, king of joy of his face: his strength in the locks of swords !' said Comhal's son, ' I behold thy

• Shall I lift that spear,' he said, blood; thou hast been mighty in battle, . that never strikes but once a foe? Or and thy fame shall never fade.' Art thou shall 1, with the words of peace, preserve the king so far renowned ? replied the carthe warrior's life?

Stately are his steps borne Carthon; art thou that light of death

sammor.

6

age!

that frightens the kings of the world ? But they mark the day, and sing the hero's why should Carthon ask ? for he is like praise. “Who comes so dark from ocean's the stream of his hills, strong as a river in roar, like autumn's shadowy cloud ? Death his course, swift as the eagle of heaven. is trembling in his hand ! his eyes are O that I had fought with the king, that my flames of fire ! Who roars along dark fame might be great in song ! that the bun- Lora's heath? Who but Carthon, king ter, beholding my tomb, might say, he fought of swords ! The people fall ! see how he with the mighty Fingal. But Carthon dies strides, like the sullen ghost of Morven! unknown : he has poured out his force on But there he lies a goodly oak, which sudthe weak.

den blasts overturned! When shalt thou " But thou shalt not die unknown, re- rise, Balclutha's joy ? When, Carthon, plied the king of woody Morven : my bards shalt thou arise ? Who comes so dark are many, 0 Carthon! their songs descend from ocean's roar, like autumn's shadowy to future times. The children of years to cloud?' Such were the words of the bards come shall hear the fame of Carthon, when in the day of their mourning ; Ossian often they sit round the burning oak, and the joined their voice, and added to their song. night is spent in songs of old. The hun My soul has been mournful for Carthon: ter, sitting in the heath, shall hear the he fell in the days of his youth: and thou, rustling blast, and, raising his eyes, behold O Clessammor! where is thy dwelling in the rock where Carthon fell. He shall the wind ? Has the youth forgot his wound? turn to his son, and show the place where Flies he on clouds with thee? I feel the the mighty fought : « There the king of sun, O Malvina ! leave me to my rest. Balclutha fought, like the strength of a Perhaps they may come to my dreams; I thousand streams.

think I hear a feeble voice! The beam of “ Joy rose in Carthon's face ; he lifted heaven delights to shine on the grave of his heavy eyes. He gave his sword to Fin- Carthon : I feel it warm around! gal, to lie within his hall, that the memory " O thou that rollest above, round as of Balclutha's king might remain in Mor. the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy ven. The battle ceased along the field, the beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou bard had sung the song of peace. The comest forth in thy awful beauty ; the stars chiefs gathered round the falling Carthon : hide themselves in the sky; the moon cold they heard his words with sighs. Silent and pale, sinks in the western wave; but they leaned on their spears, while Balclu- tbou thyself movest alone. Who can be a tha’s hero spoke. His hair sighed in the companion of thy course ? The oaks of wind, and his voice was sad and low. the mountains fall; the mountains them

6. King of Morven,' Carthon said, 'I selves decay with years; the ocean shrinks fall in the midst of my course. A foreign and grows again; the moon herself is lost tomb receives, in youth, the last of Reu. in heaven : but thou art forever the same, thamir's race. Darkness dwells in Balclu. rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. tha; the shadows of grief in Crathmo. But When the world is dark with tempests, raise my remembrance on the banks of when thunder rolls and lightning flies, thou Lora, where my fathers dwelt. Perhaps lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and the husband of Moina will mourn over his laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou fallen Carthon.' His words reached the lookest in vain, for he beholds thy beams heart of Clessammor: he fell in silence on no more : whether thy yellow hair flows on his son. The host stood darkened around: the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at no voice is on the plain. Night came : the the gates of the west.

But thou art, permoon, from the east, looked on the mourn

haps, like me, for a season : thy years will ful field ; but still they stood, like a silent have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy grove that lifts its head on Gormal, when clouds, careless of the voice of the mornthe loud winds are laid, and dark autumn ing. Exult then, O sun! in the strength is on the plain.

of thy youth ! age is dark and unlovely ; it “ Three days they mourned above Car- is like the glimmering light of the moon, thon ; on the fourth his father died. In the

when it shines through broken clouds, and narrow plain of the rock they lie ; a dim the mist is on the hills : the blast of the ghost defends their tomb. There lovely north is on the plain, the traveller shrinks Moina is often seen, when the sunbeam in the midst of his journey." darts on the rock, and all around is dark. There she is seen, Malvina ; but not like

All this, from beginning to end, we the daughters of the hill. Her robes are

maintain, is poetry; the concluding from the stranger's land, and she is still famous address to the sun the very alone!

highest poetry- and you, who have “ Fingal was sad for Carthon; he com- sense and soul of your own, will, we manded his bards to mark the day when are confident, continue to think and shadowy autumn returned ; and often did feel it to be so, notwithstanding all

-a

the scorn that has been heaped against Young hearts, we verily believe, it, because of its resemblance to some- are now-a-days the same

as young thing glorious in Milton.

hearts some fifty years ago, and often Homer was blind, and Milton was

weep for Ossian.

Not that he is blind-Ossian could not help that blind, for they know that the blind and he was blind too-without mean- may be perfectly happy-but because ing the least in the world to be like he is alone in this world. Throughthem “in old age and the loss of eyes.” out all his poetry they have a dim As for Lucifer, he is not blind (we consciousness of thinking on himwish he were), and surely he may hate self-even when the song

kindles the beams of the sun, and say so till into a brightest flame, they feel that he is tired, in Miltonic blanks, as the singer is sorrowful—the sadness, Tweedie calls them, without standing the humiliation of the present, hang in the way of honest men's addresses over the gladness, the glory, of the to that luminary, whether presented past—his life is almost death-like-a by a Celt in the second, or a Saxon in shadow on earth holding converse with the eighteenth century, and graciously shadows in the sky-moving from accepted. No man was ever less like grave to grave so like one of them, Lucifer after his fall out of the sky- selves, as not to disturb the phantoms light than Ossian. Is his address to sitting there in the moonlight!“ Dost the sun natural? It is. How the thou not behold, Malvina, a rock with devil, then, can it be like the Devil's ? its head of heath? Three aged pines But it may be like Milton's ? Yea bend from its face: green is the nar-not merely may-but must!

row plain at its feet. Two stones, Ossian thou look'st in vain ; for he half sunk in the ground, show their beholds thy beams no more ; whether heads of moss. The deer of the mounthy yellow hair flows on the eastern tain avoids the place ; for he beholds clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates a dim ghost standing there.

The of the west.”

mighty lie, O Malvina, in the narrow « But thou

plain of the rock.” Revisitest not those eyes that roll in vain

Malvina! The name is sweet, but To find thy piercing light."

she is more than a name - but for And so on. Just shut your eyes,

her Ossian would soon be dead. We delightful reader, and imagine them

see her_always—at his side, or sitting out. Muse a few minutes, and then

a little way aloof—now a shadow-now effuse an unpremeditated address to

a sunbeam-silence or music, still his the sun. Ay—there you murmur.

only comfort; if for a while out of Why, you are repeating Ossian's sight and out of hearing, never for one very words— Milton's very words

moment out of memory. “ Pleasant is the words of every blind man that, thy song in Ossian's ear, daughter of since the creation, has saluted the streamy Lutha !"

But, if published, would it prove equally affecting to the whole " It was the voice of my love! seldom human race, as

art thou in the dreams of Malvina! Open

your airy halls, O fathers of Toscar of “ Hail ! holy light! offspring of Heaven's

shields! Unfold the gates of your clouds : First-born,” &c.

the steps of Malvina are near. I have

heard a voice in my dream. I feel the “ O Thou that rulest above,” &c.

fluttering of my soul. Why didst thou Send it to Blackwood, that all the

come, O blast! from the dark-rolling face

of the lake? Thy rustling wing was in world may judge. You pause, and

the tree; the dream of Malvina fled. But hint that the subject is exhausted.

she beheld her love, when his robe of What! the Sun ? No, no-not the

mist flew on the wind. A sunbeam was Sun. What then? Why, the sub

on his skirts, they glittered like the gold ject. Well, then-the subject—but of the stranger. It was the voice of my when, and by whom? But we are

love! seldom comes he to my dreams! pressing you too hard--you are an ««• But thou dwellest in the soul of excellent creature, but no genius, Malvina, son of mighty Ossian! My sighs so shut you mouth, and open your arise with the beam of the east ; my tears eyes, and whatever you may think of descend with the drops of night. I was the authenticity, believe in the inspi. a lovely tree, in thy presence, Oscar, with ration, of Ossian's poems.

all my branches round me; but thy death

morn.

Or,