How fast thy slender form decays! How like thy dim and dying flame, P2 THE FAREWEL SONG OF OSSIAN. THE FOLLOWING LINES ARE AN ATTEMPT TO THROW INTO THE MEASURED FORM OF POETRY, A PART OF THE POEM OF BERRATHON. LEAD son of Alpin, lead me to the woods.... Dark roll the waves; loud sweep the hollow winds; The leaves are scattered o'er the misty heath; No hunter's step is heard. Bends not a tree o'er Mora's banks of moss, With naked branches whistling to the wind? There hangs my harp upon a blasted bough, And mournful sound its strings. Lead Son of Alpin, lead me to my harp, • Be near ye winds, and bear upon your wings, The dying strain to mighty Fingal's ear! O let him hear his son's departing voice Whose head is bow'd with years! The aged oak that sighs with all its moss, The wither'd fern that hangs its head with mist, The ruin'd wall that shakes beneath the storm, Are like my faded form. The night descends. No pale cold moon is seen, No red-star glimmering thro' the darkened cloud. The rain-drops rustle thro' the naked trees, And all is drear and dark. At morning's dawn the hunter, as he treads These plains and mountains, in pursuit of deer, Will search for Ossian, and will find him cold And stretch'd upon the rock. He'll tear his hair....the tear will wet his cheek: He'll weep o'er Ossian and his sleeping harp. Son of the chace, then let my tomb arise, On Lutha's lovely plain! The Northern blasts unfold thy gates, O king!* And I behold thee gleaming in thy arms; Thy shield is like the old decaying moon, Thy sword a vapour kindled into fire, Thy steps, O chief! are on the desert-winds, What murmur's that which comes upon my ear? " Fingal has had his fame. He pass'd away Like flames which fill'd and lightened all the world, Tho' dark and silent are our fields of war, Our fame is on the four gray stones. • Fingal. |