Long are the clouds this night above me; The last was a long night to me. This day that drags its weary way Came from a wearier yesterday. Each day that comes is long to me: Such was not my wont to be. Now there is no fine delight In battle-field, and fence of fight; No training now to feats of arms, Nor song, nor harp, nor maiden’s charms, Nor blazing hearth, nor well-heaped board, Nor banquet spread by liberal lord, Nor stag pursuing, nor gentle wooing, The dearest of dear trades to me. Alas! that I should live to see Days without mirth in hut or hall Without the hunter’s wakeful call, Or bay of hounds, or hounds at all, Without light jest, or sportive whim Or lads with mounting breast to swim Across the long arms of the sea— Long are the clouds this night above me. In the big world there lives no wight More sad than I this night. A poor old man with no pith in my bones, Fit for nothing but gathering stones. The last of the Finn, the noble race, Ossian, the son of Finn am I, Standing beneath the cold grey sky, Listening to the sound of bells. Long are the clouds this night above me! One of the chief characteristics of the poetry of this period is the clearness or distinctness of the ideas. The authors seize at once their subject and straightway sing what they have to utter. They also appear to have a definite object in view when they invoke the muse, and they carry it out in a clear, direct, and unhesitating fashion. The vagueness and mistiness of Macpherson’s Ossianic poems have been much commented upon, and sometimes with good reason. Nothing like mistiness can be affirmed of the Ossianic poems which were composed or transcribed and were popular at this period. The ideas of the authors stand out in brilliant distinctness, like stars looking forth beneath the brows of a frosty night.