is not turned on Lubar, but on Selma's dreadful king. He beholds him, on Mora, rising in

his arms.

22

Foldath falls on his shield. The spear of

He went to the cave of fathers, concerning the The responses of oracles

22 The fall of Foldath, if we may believe tradition, was predicted to him, before he had left his own country to join Cairbar in his designs on the Irish throne. Moma, to inquire of the spirits of his success of the enterprise of Cairbar. are always attended with obscurity, and liable to a double meaning: Foldath, therefore, put a favourable interpretation on the prediction, and pursued his adopted plan of aggrandizing himself with the family of Atha.

FOLDATH, addressing the spirit of his fathers.

Dark, I stand in your presence; fathers of Foldath, hear. Shall my steps pass over Atha, to Ullin of the roes?

The Answer.

Thy steps shall pass over Atha, to the green dwelling of kings. There shall thy stature arise, over the fallen, like a pillar of thunder-clouds. There, terrible in darkness, shalt thou stand, till the reflected beam, or Clon-cath of Moruth, come; Moruth of many streams, that roars in distant lands.

Cloncath, or reflected beam, say my traditional authors, was the name of the sword of Fillan; so that it was, in the latent signification of the word Cloncath, that the deception lay. My principal reason for introducing this note, is, that this tradition serves to shew, that the religion of the Fir-bolg differed from that of the Caledonians, as we never find the latter inquiring of the spirits of their deceased ancestors. MACPHERSON. Cloncath, the reflected beam of Moruth: claon, inclined, VOL. II.

L

Fillan pierced the king. Nor looks the youth on the fallen, but onward rolls the war. The hundred voices of death arise. "Stay, son of Fingal, stay thy speed. Beholdest thou not that gleaming form, a dreadful sign of death? Awaken not the king of Erin. Return, son of blueeyed Clatho."

Malthos beholds Foldath low. He darkly stands above the chief. Hatred is rolled from his soul. He seems a rock in a desert, on whose dark side are the trickling of waters *3; when

bending, partial; cath, a battle, not a sun beam. But in this obvious imitation of the response of the oracle of Delphi to Croesus, those traditional authors were probably ignorant, that the genuine Ossian could not well have anticipated the discoveries concerning the reflection of light, without a language capable at least of expressing Milton's idea. Par. Lost, x. 1070.

How we his gathered beams

Reflected, may with matter sere foment.

23 He seemed a rock in the desert, on whose dark sides are the trickling of waters.] POPE's Iliad, ix. 19.

So silent fountains, from a rock's tall head,

In sable streams soft-trickling waters shed.

Here various imitations stand undisguised. "Like a rock on whose sides is the wandering of streams or blasts." ،، High

on their face are streams, which spread their foam on blasts." "Like the face of streams, when they mix their foam together from two dark-browed rocks," &c.

the slow-sailing mist has left it, and all its trees are blasted with winds. He spoke to the dying hero, about the narrow house. "Whether shall thy grey stone rise in Ullin, or in Moma's woody land? where the sun looks, in secret, on the blue streams of Dalrutho? There are the steps of thy daughter, blue-eyed Dardu-lena!"

"Rememberest thou her," said Foldath, "because no son is mine: no youth to roll the battle before him, in revenge of me? Malthos, I am revenged. I was not peaceful in the field. Raise the tombs of those I have slain, around my narrow house. Often shall I forsake the blast, to rejoice above their graves; when I behold them spread around, with their long-whistling grass.

His soul rushed to the vale of Moma, to Dardu-lena's dreams, where she slept, by Dalrutho's stream, returning from the chace of the hinds. Her bow is near the maid, unstrung. The breezes fold her long hair on her breasts. Clothed in the beauty of youth, the love of heroes lay. Dark-bending from the skirts of the wood, her wounded father seemed to come. He appeared, at times, then hid himself in mist. Bursting in tears she rose. She knew that the chief

was low. To her came a beam from his soul, when folded in its storms. Thou wert the last of his race, O blue-eyed Dardu-lena!

Wide-spreading over echoing Lubar, the flight of Bolga is rolled along. Fillan hangs forward on their steps. He strews, with dead, the heath. Fingal rejoices over his son. Blue-shielded

Cathmor rose.

Son of Alpin, bring the harp. Give Fillan's praise to the wind. Raise high his praise in mine ear, while yet he shines in war.

Leave, blue-eyed Clatho, leave thy hall **! Behold that early beam of thine! The host is withered in its course. No further look, it is dark. Light-trembling' from the harp, strike,

24 The address to Clatho, the mother of Fillan, which concludes this book, if we regard the versification of the original, is one of the most beautiful passages in the poem. The wild simplicity and harmony of its cadences are inimitably beautiful. It is sung still by many in the north, and is distinguished by the name of Laoi chaon Chlatho: i. e. The harmonious hymn of Clatho. MACPHERSON, 1st edit.

LAOI chaon Clatho: The harmonious lay of Clatho. The poet's address to Clatho in person, to leave her hall in Selma, in order to behold her son Fillan in Ireland, as if she were alive and present both at the song and at the battle, is one of those extravagant efforts of affected inspiration, in which all distinctions of time and of place are confounded.

virgins, strike the sound. No hunter he descends, from the dewy haunt of the bounding roe. He bends not his bow on the wind; nor sends his grey arrow abroad.

Deep-folded in red war! See battle roll against his side. Striding amid the ridgy strife, he pours the deaths of thousands forth. Fillan is like a spirit of heaven, that descends from the skirt of winds. The troubled ocean feels his steps, as he strides from wave to wave *5. His path kindles behind him. Islands shake their heads on the heaving seas! Leave, blue-eyed Clatho, leave thy hall !

25

Striding amid the ridgy strife—like a spirit of heaven—as he strides from wave to wave.] "The troubled ocean feels his steps-His path kindles behind him. Islands shake their heads on the heaving seas." Varied, as usual, from a preceding simile. "Through the host are the strides of Foldath, like some dark ship on wintry waves when she issues from between two isles, to sport on resounding ocean." Supra, 17. The rousedup river between two meeting hills, was first transformed into a dark ship from between two isles; and the ship again into a spirit of heaven, whose path kindles behind him on the heaving

seas.