FINGAL.

YOUTH of the gloomy brow! no more fhale thou feaft in my halls. Thou shalt not pursue my chace, my foes fhall not fall by thy fword *. Lead me to the place of her reft that I may behold her beauty. Pale fhe lies at the rock, the cold winds lift her hair. Her bow-ftring founds in the blaft, her arrow was broken in her fall. Raife the praise of the daughter of Sarno! give her name to the winds of heaven!

BARDS.

SEE! meteors gleam around the maid! See! moon-beams lift her foul! Around her, from their clouds, bend the awful faces of her fathers; Sarnot of the gloomy brow! the redrolling eyes of Fidallan! When shall thy white hand arife? When fhall thy voice be heard on our rocks? The maids fhall feek thee on the heath, but they shall not find thee. Thou shalt coine, at times, to their dreams, to settle peace

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*The fequel of the ftory of Hidallan is introduced in another poem.

Sarno the father of Comala died foon after the flight of his daughter. Fidallan was the first king that reigned in Jniftore.

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in their foul. Thy voice fhall remain in their ears, they shall think with joy on the dreams of their reft. Meteors gleam around the maid, and moon-beams lift her foul!

VOL. I.

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CARRIC

CARRIC-THURA:

POE M.

ARGUMENT.

Fingal, returning from an expedition which he had made into the Roman province, refolved to vifit Cathulla king of Iniftore, and brother to Comála, whose story is related, at large, in the preceding dramatic poem. Upon his coming in fight of Carric-thura, the palace of Cathulla, he observed a flame on its top, which, in those days, was a fignal of diftrefs. The wind drove him into a bay, at some distance from Carric-thura, and he was obliged to pass the night on the fhore. Next day he attacked the army of Frothal king of Sora, who had befieged Cathulla in his palace of Carric-thura, and took Frothal himself prifoner, after he had engaged him in a fingle combat. The deliverance of Carric-thura is the fubject of the poem; but several other episodes are interwoven with it. It appears from tradition, that this poem was addressed to a Culdee, or one of the first Christian miffionaries, and that the story of the Spirit of Loda, supposed to be the ancient Odin of Scandinavia, was introduced by Offian in oppofition to the Culdee's doctrine. Be this as it will, it lets us into Offian's notions of a fuperior being; and fhews that he was not addicted to the fuperftition which prevailed all the world over, before the in troduction of Christianity.