Such seemed the low-laid hero’s form
Ere came death’s arrow in the storm.
Dan an Deirg, one of the finest poems in Smith’s volume, has been recently translated, edited, and annotated by an accomplished English scholar and graduate of Cambridge, Mr C. S. Jerram, who has been at the pains of studying the language. To this interesting little volume is prefixed a very intelligent and fair account of the state of the Ossianic question.
Dr Smith’s “Old Lays,” translated by himself in too free and turgid a fashion, are as interesting as Macpherson’s “Ossian,” and not inferior in any respect to that famed production. In the opening of one of these “lays,” called “Finan and Lorma,” we find a very pretty set of verses in which the young people around him, looking upon the heavens, are represented as addressing the aged Ossian in the following manner:—
While on the plains shines the moon, O bard!
And the shadow of Cona holds;
Like a ghost breathes the wind from the mountain,
With its spirit voice in its folds.
There are two cloudy forms before us,
Where its host the dim night shows;