"Who lie on the heath beside me? Are they my love and my brother? Speak
to me, O my friends! To Colma they give no reply. Speak to me: I am
alone! My soul is tormented with fears. Ah, they are dead! Their swords
are red from the fight. Oh, my brother! my brother! why hast thou slain
my Salgar? Why, O Salgar! hast thou slain my brother? Dear were ye both
to me! what shall I say in your praise? Thou wert fair on the hill
among thousands! he was terrible in fight! Speak to me! hear my voice!
hear me, sons of my love! They are silent, silent forever! Cold, cold,
are their breasts of clay! Oh, from the rock on the hill, from the top
of the windy steep, speak, ye ghosts of the dead! Speak, I will not be
afraid! Whither are ye gone to rest? In what cave of the hill shall I
find the departed? No feeble voice is on the gale: no answer half
drowned in the storm!
"I sit in my grief: I wait for morning in my tears! Rear the tomb, ye
friends of the dead. Close it not till Colma come. My life flies away
like a dream. Why should I stay behind? Here shall I rest with my
friends, by the stream of the sounding rock. When night comes on the
hill,--when the loud winds arise, my ghost shall stand in the blast,
and mourn the death of my friends. The hunter shall hear from his
booth; he shall fear, but love my voice! For sweet shall my voice be
for my friends: pleasant were her friends to Colma.
"Such was thy song, Minona, softly blushing daughter of Torman. Our
tears descended for Colma, and our souls were sad! Ullin came with his
harp; he gave the song of Alpin. The voice of Alpin was pleasant; the
soul of Ryno was a beam of fire! But they had rested in the narrow
house: their voice had ceased in Selma! Ullin had returned one day from
the chase before the heroes fell. He heard their strife on the hill:
their song was soft, but sad! They mourned the fall of Morar, first of
mortal men! His soul was like the soul of Fingal; his sword like the
sword of Oscar. But he fell, and his father mourned; his sister's eyes
were full of tears. Minona's eyes were full of tears, the sister of
car-borne Morar. She retired from the song of Ullin, like the moon in
the west, when she foresees the shower, and hides her fair head in a
cloud. I touched the harp with Ullin: the song of mourning rose!
"_Ryno_. The wind and the rain are past; calm is the noon of day. The
clouds are divided in heaven. Over the green hills flies the inconstant
sun. Red through the stony vale comes down the stream of the hill.
Sweet are thy murmurs, O stream! but more sweet is the voice I hear. It
is the voice of Alpin, the son of song, mourning for the dead! Bent is
his head of age; red his tearful eye. Alpin, thou son of song, why
alone on the silent hill? why complainest thou, as a blast in the
wood,--as a wave on the lonely shore?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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