I take the following lines of the close of this grand ballad from Pattison’s blank-verse translation. Finn was beside his grandson before he breathed his last. Oscar heard the great king’s wailing cry, and looking round on all he sighed and said, “Farewell! I shall return no more.” Finn, who never wept before in sight of man but once, when Bran died, strode a pace away and wept. But—
Then Finn came back; and, standing near my side,
He bent again o’er Oscar, while he said:—
“The mournful howlings of the dogs distress me—
The groanings of the heroes old and grey—
The people’s wailing and their blank despair.
O son! that I had fallen in thy stead,
In the dire battle with thy treacherous foes,
And thou hadst loved to be a chief and leader,
And bring the Finians east and west with joy!