into thy peaceful plains? Do I meet thee, with a spear, on thy cloud, spirit of dismal Loda? Why, then, dost thou frown on Fingal ? Or shake thine airy spear? But thou frownest in vain: I never fled from mighty men. And shall the sons of the wind frighten the king of Morven ! No: he knows the weakness of their arms."

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'Fly to thy land," replied the form: "receive the wind and fly. The blasts are in the hollow of my hand: the course of the storm is mine. The king of Sora is my son, he bends at the stone of my power. His battle is around Carric-thura; and he will prevail. Fly to thy land, son of Comhal, or feel my flaming wrath.'

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He lifted high his shadowy spear; and bent forward his terrible height. But the king, advancing, drew his sword; the blade of dark-brown Luno. The gleaming path of the steel winds through the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless into air, like a column of smoke, which the staff of the boy disturbs, as it rises from the half-extinguished furnace.

The spirit of Loda shrieked, as, rolled into himself, he rose on the wind. Inistore shook at the sound. The waves heard it on the deep: they stopped, in their course, with fear: the companions of Fingal started, at once; and took their heavy spears. They missed the king; they rose with rage all their arms resound.

The moon came forth in the east. The king returned in the gleam of his arms. The joy of his youths was great; their souls settled, as a sea from a storm. Ullin raised the song of gladness. The hills of Inistore rejoiced. The flame of the oak arose; and the tales of heroes are told.

LESSON CXXIX.

Death of Carthon-Ossian's address to the Sun.-THE SAME. THE battle ceased along the field, for the bard had sung the song of peace. The chiefs gathered round the falling Carthon, and heard his words, with sighs. Silent they leaned on their spears, while Balclutha's hero spoke. His hair sighed in the wind, and his words were feeble.

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King of Morven," Carthon said, "I fall in the midst of my course. A foreign tomb receives, in youth, the last of Reuthamir's race. Darkness dwells in Balclutha : and

the shadows of grief in Crathmo. But raise my remembrance on the banks of Lora, where my fathers dwelt. Perhaps the husband of Moina will mourn over his fallen Carthon." His words reached the heart of Clessàmmor : he fell, in silence, on his son. The host stood darkened

around: no voice is on the plains of Lora. Night came, and the moon, from the east, looked on the mournful field: but still they stood, like a silent grove that lifts its head on Gormal, when the loud winds are laid, and dark autumn is on the plain.

Three days they mourned over Carthon: on the fourth his father died. In the narrow plain of the rock they lie; and a dim ghost defends their tomb. There lovely Moina is often seen; when the sun-beam darts on the rock, and all around is dark. There she is seen, Malvina, but not like the daughters of the hill. Her robes are from the stranger's land; and she is still alone.

Fingal was sad for Carthon; he desired his bards to mark the day, when shadowy autumn returned. And often did they mark the day, and sing the hero's praise. "Who comes so dark from ocean's roar, like autumn's shadowy cloud? Death is trembling in his hand! his eyes are flames of fire! Who roars along dark Lora's heath? Who but Carthon king of swords? The people fall! see! how he strides, like the sullen ghost of Morven ! But there he lies, a goodly oak, which sudden blasts overturned! When shalt thou rise, Balclutha's joy! lovely car-borne Carthon? Who comes so dark from ocean's roar, like autumn's shadowy cloud?" Such were the words of the bards, in the day of their mourning: I have accompanied their voice; and added to their song. My soul has been mournful for Carthon, he fell in the days of his valour: and thou, O Clessàmmor! where is thy dwelling in the air? Has the youth forgot his wound? And flies he, on the clouds, with thee? I feel the sun, O Malvina; leave me to my rest. Perhaps they may come to my dreams; I think I hear a feeble voice. The beam of heaven delights to shine on the grave of Carthon : I feel it warm around.

O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth, in thy awful beauty, and the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest alone : who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the

mountains fall: the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again: the moon herself is lost in heaven; but thou art for ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests; when thunder rolls, and lightning flies; thou lookest in thy beauty, from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian, thou lookest in vain ; for he beholds thy beams no more; whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art perhaps, like me, for a season, and thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O sun, in the strength of thy youth! Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon, when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills; the blast of the north is on the plain, the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey.

LESSON CXXX.

Apostrophe to the Sun.-J. G. PERCIVAL.

CENTRE of light and energy! thy way

Is through the unknown void; thou hast thy throne, Morning, and evening, and at noon of day,

Far in the blue, untended and alone :

Ere the first-wakened airs of earth had blown,

On didst thou march, triumphant in thy light;

Then didst thou send thy glance, which still hath flown Wide through the never-ending worlds of night,

And yet thy full orb burns with flash unquenched and bright.

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Thy path is high in heaven;—we cannot gaze
On the intense of light that girds thy car;
There is a crown of glory in thy rays,
Which bears thy pure divinity afar
To mingle with the equal light of star;
For thou, so vast to us, art, in the whole,

One of the sparks of night, that fire the air;
And, as around thy centre planets roll,

So thou, too, hast thy path around the Central Soul.

Thou lookest on the earth, and then it smiles;
Thy light is hid and all things droop and mourn ;
Laughs the wide sea around her budding isles,

When through their heaven thy changing car is borne; Thou wheel'st away thy flight,-the woods are shorn Of all their waving locks, and storms awake;

All, that was once so beautiful, is torn

By the wild winds which plough the lonely lake,
And in their maddening rush the crested mountains shake

The earth lies buried in a shroud of snow;
Life lingers, and would die, but thy return
Gives to their gladdened hearts an overflow
Of all the power, that brooded in the urn

Of their chilled frames, and then they proudly spurn All bands that would confine, and give to air

Hues, fragrance, shapes of beauty, till they burn, When, on a dewy morn, thou dartest there

Rich waves of gold to wreath with fairer light the fair.

The vales are thine :-and when the touch of Spring
Thrills them, and gives them gladness, in thy light
They glitter, as the glancing swallow's wing

Dashes the water in his winding flight,

And leaves behind a wave, that crinkles bright, And widens outward to the pebbled shore ;—

The vales are thine; and when they wake from night,
The dews that bend the grass tips, twinkling o'er
Their soft and oozy beds, look upward and adore.

The hills are thine :-they catch thy newest beam,
And gladden in thy parting, where the wood
Flames out in every leaf, and drinks the stream,
That flows from out thy fulness, as a flood
Bursts from an unknown land, and rolls the food
Of nations in its waters; so thy rays

Flow and give brighter tints, than ever bud,
When a clear sheet of ice reflects a blaze

Of many twinkling gems, as every glossed bough plays.

Thine are the mountains,-where they purely lift
Snows that have never wasted, in a sky
Which hath no stain; below the storm may drift
Its darkness, and the thunder-gust roar by ;—
Aloft in thy eternal smile they lie

Dazzling but cold;-thy farewell glance looks there,

And when below thy hues of beauty die,
Girt round them, as a rosy belt, they bear
Into the high dark vault, a brow that still is fair.

The clouds are thine; and all their magick hues
Are pencilled by thee; when thou bendest low,
Or comest in thy strength, thy hand imbues

Their waving folds with such a perfect glow
Of all pure tints, the fairy pictures throw
Shame on the proudest art;

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These are thy trophies, and thou bend'st thy arch,
The sign of triumph, in a seven-fold twine,
Where the spent storm is hasting on its march;
And there the glories of thy light combine,
And form, with perfect curve, a lifted line
Striding the earth and air;-man looks and tells
How Peace and Mercy in its beauty shine,
And how the heavenly messenger impels

Her glad wings on the path, that thus in ether swells.

The ocean is thy vassal:-thou dost sway
His waves to thy dominion, and they go

Where thou, in heaven, dost guide them on their way
Rising and falling in eternal flow:

Thou lookest on the waters, and they glow, And take them wings and spring aloft in air,

And change to clouds, and then, dissolving, throw Their treasures back to earth, and, rushing, tear The mountain and the vale, as proudly on they bear.

In thee, first light, the bounding ocean smiles
When the quick winds uprear it in a swell,
That rolls in glittering green around the isles,
Where ever-springing fruits and blossoms dwell.
O! with a joy no gifted tongue can tell,

I hurry o'er the waters when the sail

Swells tensely, and the light keel glances well Over the curling billow, and the gale

Comes off from spicy groves to tell its winning tale.