“Hard were it Finn to number, Heavy for me were the labour, To tell of the host that has fallen, Slain by the valour of Oscar. No rush of the waterfall swifter, No pounce of the hawk on his prey, No whirlpool more sweeping and deadly, Than Oscar in battle that day. And you who last saw him could see How he throbbed in the roar of the fray, As a storm-worried leaf on the tree Whose fellows lie fallen below, As an aspen will quiver and sway While the axe deals it blow upon blow. When he saw that MacArt, King of Erin, Still lived in the midst of the roar, Oscar gathered his force to roll on him As waves roll to break on the shore. The king’s son, Cairber, saw the danger, He shook his great hungering spear, Grief of Griefs! drove its point through our Oscar, Who braved the death-stroke without fear. Rushing still on MacArt, King of Erin, His weight on his weapon he threw, And smote at MacArt, and again smote Cairber, whom that second blow slew. So died Oscar, a king in his glory. I, Fergus the bard, grieve my way Through all lands, saying how went the story Of Gabhra’s fierce battle-day.” “Say!” I take the following lines of the close of this grand ballad from Pattison’s blank-verse translation. Finn was beside his grandson before he breathed his last. Oscar heard the great king’s wailing cry, and looking round on all he sighed and said, “Farewell! I shall return no more.” Finn, who never wept before in sight of man but once, when Bran died, strode a pace away and wept. But— Then Finn came back; and, standing near my side, He bent again o’er Oscar, while he said:— “The mournful howlings of the dogs distress me— The groanings of the heroes old and grey— The people’s wailing and their blank despair. O son! that I had fallen in thy stead, In the dire battle with thy treacherous foes, And thou hadst loved to be a chief and leader, And bring the Finians east and west with joy! O Oscar! thou wilt never rise again! O’er thee, my old heart, like an elk, is leaping! Thou wilt return, thou wilt return no more! ’Twas rightly said, ‘I shall return no more!’” These are some of the scenes of the great battle of _Gabhra_, the Temora of Macpherson, fought about the year 284 A.D.