"Ullin came with aged steps, and spoke to Starno's son. 'O thou that dwellest afar, surrounded like a rock with thy waves! Come to the feast of the king, and pass the day in rest. To-morrow let us fight, O Swaran, and break the echoing shields.' 'To-day,' said Starno's wrathful son, 'we break the echoing shields: to-morrow my feast shall be spread; but Fingal shall lie on earth.' 'To-morrow let the feast be spread,' said Fingal, with a smile. 'To-day, O my sons, we shall break the echoing shields. Ossian, stand thou near my arm. Gaul, lift thy terrible sword. Fergus, bend thy crooked yew. Throw, Fillan, thy lance through heaven. Lift your shields like the darkened moon. Be your spears the meteors of death. Follow me in the path of my fame. Equal my deeds in battle.' "As a hundred winds on Morven; as the streams of a hundred hills; as clouds fly successive over heaven; as the dark ocean assails the shore of the desert; so roaring, so vast, so terrible the armies mixed on Lena's echoing heath. The groan of the people spread over the hills; it was like the thunder of night when the clouds burst on Cona, and a thousand ghosts shriek at once on the hollow wind. Fingal rushed on in his strength, terrible as the spirit of Trenmore, when in a whirlwind he comes to Morven to see the children of his pride. The oaks resound on their mountains, and the rocks fall down before him. Dimly seen as lightens the night, he strides largely from hill to hill. Bloody was the hand of my father when he whirled the gleam of his sword. He remembered the battles of his youth. The field is wasted in the course. "Ryno went on like a pillar of fire. Dark is the brow of Gaul. Fergus rushed forward with feet of wind. Fillan, like the mist of the hill. Ossian, like a rock, came down. I exulted in the strength of the king. Many were the deaths of my arm! dismal the gleam of my sword! My locks were not then so gray; nor trembled my hands with age. My eyes were not closed in darkness; my feet failed not in the race. "Who can relate the deaths of the people, who the deeds of mighty heroes, when Fingal, burning in his wrath, consumed the sons of Lochlin? Groans swelled on groans from hill to hill, till night had covered all. Pale, staring like a herd of deer, the sons of Lochlin convene on Lena." So writes Macpherson. I subjoin a more literal and faithful rendering of the passage, in which, to some extent, may be tasted the wild-honey flavour of the original:-- "Fingal descried the illustrious son of Starn, And he remember'd the maiden of the snow: When she fell, Swaran wept For the young maid of brightest cheek. "Ullin of songs (the bard) approach'd To bid him to the feast upon the shore. Sweet to the king of the great mountains Was the remembrance of his first-loved maid.