And of my kind spouse—golden-headed Niamh,
To go to Erinn back again,
To see Fionn and his great host.”
She reluctantly consents to Ossian’s return; and the parting is bitterly sad to both:—
“I looked up into her countenance with compassion,
And streams of tears run from my eyes,
O Patrick! thou wouldest have pitied her
Tearing the hair of the golden head.”
She warns him on his return never to alight off the white steed, or—
“Thou wilt be an old man, withered and blind.”