No time can extinguish, no ruin assail.
“From the hand of a cloud-cleaving bard thou wert given
To lips that embraced thee till nerveless and dead;
Since then never idly Mac Pherson hath striven,
Nor trust in his fortune been shaken by dread.
“O mouth-piece of conquest! who heard thee and trembled?
Who followed thy call, and despaired of the fight?
Availed not that foemen before thee dissembled,
For quenched was their ardour and nerveless their might.
“The blast of thy pibroch, the plaint of thy streamer,