Morning rose with its beams. The sons of Erin appear, like grey rocks, with all their trees; they spread along the coast. Cairbar stood in the midst. He grimly smiled when he saw the foe. Nathos rushed forward, in his strength; nor could Darthula stay behind. She came with the hero, lifting her shining spear.
"Come," said Nathos to Cairbar—"come, chief of high Temora! Let our battle be on the coast, for the white-bosomed maid. His people are not with Nathos; they are behind these rolling seas. Why dost thou bring thy thousands against the chief of Etha?"
"Youth of the heart of pride," replied Cairbar, "shall Erin's king fight with thee? Thy fathers were not among the renowned, and Cairbar does not fight with feeble men!"
The tear started from car-borne Nathos. He turned his eyes to his brothers. Their spears flew at once. Three heroes lay on earth. Then the light of their swords gleamed on high. The ranks of Erin yield, as a ridge of dark clouds before a blast of wind! Then Cairbar ordered his people, and they drew a thousand bows. A thousand arrows flew. The sons of Usnoth fell in blood. They fell like three young oaks, which stood alone on the hill. The traveller saw the lovely trees, and wondered how they grew so lonely; the blast of the desert came by night, and laid their green heads low; next day he returned, but they were withered, and the heath was bare!
Darthula stood in silent grief, and beheld their fall! Pale was her cheek. Her trembling lips broke short a half-formed word. Her breast of snow appeared. It appeared; but it was stained with blood. An arrow was fixed in her side. She fell on the fallen Nathos, like a wreath of snow! Her hair spreads wide on his face. Their blood is mixing round!
"Daughter of Colla—thou art low!" said Cairbar's hundred bards. "When wilt thou rise in thy beauty, first of Erin's maids? Thy sleep is long in the tomb. The sun shall not come to thy bed and say, 'Awake, Darthula! Awake thou first of women! The wind of spring is abroad. The flowers shake their heads on the green hills. The winds wave their growing leaves.' Retire, O sun, the daughter of Colla is asleep! She will not come forth in her beauty. She will not move in the steps of her loveliness!"
Such was the song of the bards when they raised the tomb. I, too, sang over the grave when the king of Morven came to green Erin to fight with the car-borne Cairbar!
FOOTNOTES:
[W] No ancient or modern work in the history of literature has excited such wild admiration and such profound contempt as the "Ossian" of James Macpherson. It was Napoleon's favourite work; he carried it with him to Egypt and took it to St. Helena. Byron and Goethe and Chateaubriand were also touched to enthusiasm by it. Its author—or, as some still think, its editor—was a Scottish schoolmaster, James Macpherson, born at Ruthven, in Inverness-shire on October 27, 1736. The first part of the work, entitled "Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and Translated from the Gaelic, or Erse, Language," was published in 1760; "Fingal" appeared in 1762, and "Temora" in the following year. Doctor Johnson said of Macpherson: "He has found names, and stories, and phrases, nay, passages in old songs, and with them has blended his own compositions, and so made what he gives to the world as the translation of an ancient poem"; and this verdict is now confirmed by the best authorities. Nevertheless, "Ossian" is a work of considerable merit and great historic interest. It contains some fine passages of real poetry, such as the invocation to the sun with which "Carthon" concludes, and it has served to attract universal attention to the magnificent Celtic traditions of Scotland and Ireland. Macpherson died in Inverness-shire on February 17, 1796.