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"Then, when they die, 'tis joy around their bier, "And strangers place their stone without a tear. "How happier far in youth to fall with fame, "When virtuous actions a distinction claim !"

These rights funereal paid, I anchor weigh'd, And soon the coast of hilly Morven made.

BERRATHON.

BERRATHON.

THE ARGUMENT.

LARTHMOR, King of Berrathon, being dethroned by his son Uthal; Fingal sent Ossian and Toscar (the father of the celebrated Malvina) to restore the father again to his throne. Uthal was handsome; Nina-thoma, the daughter of Torthoma, fell in love with, and married him. But proving inconstant, he left her on a desart island, whence she is relieved by Ossian; who landing, defeats the forces of Uthal, and killed him in battle. Nina-thoma, whose love for her husband, not all his bad usage could erase, died of grief at his death. In the mean time Larthmor is retored, and Ossian returns to Morven.

The poem opens with an elegy on the death of Malvina, the daughter of Toscar, and closes with presages of his own approaching end.

BERRATHON.

THROUGH Lutha's narrow vale smooth winds along

A gentle brook, with alders overhung;

So close above the serried branches join,

That scarce between the noontide sun-beams shine.
The fertile glen is cloth'd in green, and there
The lonely thistle shakes its head in air.
There likewise, heavy with the dewy show'r,
Waves to the breeze at times the full-blown flow'r;
And nodding, in each breath expects the blast,
That wide abroad its scatter'd leaves shall cast;
Though fair and fresh to day, strew'd o'er the plain,
To-morrow for its place to seek is vain!

An emblem of the short precarious state,
To hapless mortals here allow'd by fate.

Not Cona's voice, whose numbers charm'd mankind,
Can from the common doom exemption find:
The hunter, issuing forth at morning hour,
Will one day say; "no more in yonder bow'r,

"The

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