Mora dies -The vifion grows dim on my mind:—I behold the chiefs no more. But, O ye bards of future times, remember the fall of Conlath with tears: he fell before his day (1); and fadness darkened in his hall. His mother looked to his shield on the wall, and it was bloody (2). She knew that her hero died, and her forrow was heard on Mora. Art thou pale, on thy rock, Cuthona befide the fallen chiefs? The night comes, and the day returns, but none appears to raise their tomb. Thou frightneft the fcreaming fowls (3) away, and thy tears for ever flow. Thou art pale as a watry cloud, that rifes from a lake. (1) Nam quia nec fato, merita nec morte peribat, Sed mifera ante diem,& c. VIRG. (2) It was the opinion of the times, that the arms left by the heroes at home became bloody the very inftant their owners were killed though at ever fo great a distance. (3) The fituation of Cuthona is like that of Rizpah, Saul's mistress, who fat by her fons after they had been hanged by the Gibeonites. And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took fackcloth, and fpread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of the harveft until water dropped on them out of heaven, and fuffered neither the birds of the air to reft on them by day, nor the beafts of prey by night. 2 SAM, xxi. 10. The fons of the defart came, and they found her dead. They raise a tomb over the heroes; and she refts at the fide of Conlath.Come not to my dreams, O Conlath; for thou haft received thy fame. Be thy voice far distant from my hall; that fleep may descend at night. O that I could forget my friends till my footsteps ceafe to be feen!till I come among them with joy! and lay my aged limbs in the narrow houfe! |