Dh’ fhâilnich sìol Albha nam feachd, Mar smùid á teach fuaraidh dorcha; Cha’n iognadh mise bhi trom an nochd ’S tusa Fhionain ’san t-slochd, ’s a Lorma! _Translation._ MORNI’S LAMENT FOR HIS CHILDREN. O children I am weak and old! Bereft of you I feel forlorn; Like oak-tree withered on the height, Whose leaves shall never more return. The winter darkens in the vale: The branches bloom with leaves no more; The spring their beauty will bring back, But ah! my strength nought can restore. The host of Alva has decayed Like smoke from a cold house of gloom; This night I grieve for there are left Finan and Lorma in the tomb. The above Albha, Alva, is Allen in Ireland, and has no connection with Alban, with which, however, it has been often confounded in the old ballads. Ultra patriotic Scotchmen have frequently, likely in ignorance, rendered the Irish Almhuin into Albin. This mistake occurs in Mr Pattison’s _Gaelic Bards_. “Once, when the kingly feast was spread on Albin’s golden slope,” p. 148. The titles of the others in order are: _The War of Linne_; _Cathula_; _The War of Manus_, which includes the highly popular _Lay of the Great Fool_; _Trahul_, at the beginning of which there appears the beautiful address to the Rising Sun— A Mhic na h-ôg mhaidne, ag éiridh, _Son of the young morn that risest_; _Dargo_; _Conn_, in which a version of a passage occurs whose equivalent is given in a translation thus:— See Loda’s gloomy form advance, On high he lifts his shadowy lance, Within his hand the tempests lour, The blast of death his nostrils pour: Like flames his baleful eyes Appal the valiant—from the fight They turn before the blasting light; His hollow voice like thunder shakes the skies, Slowly he moves along, exulting in his might. Vain are thy terrors, dreadful shade! Lo! Morven’s king defies aloud Thy utmost force.— His glaring blade Winds through the murky cloud. The form falls shapeless into air: His direful shrieks the billows hear, And stop their rapid course with fear. The hundred rocks of Inistore reply, As roll’d into himself he mounts the darkened sky. The above is a specimen of Smith’s verse translations. From the same poem is taken the following to show the manner of his prose translation, in which the _Old Lays_ made their first appearance:— _Translation._ But Ossian alone does not experience distress; aged Lugar, thine was part of the trouble. In thy halls were seen the feast, wax candles, and wine; though they be now desolate, they were once the residence of kings! But similar to the revolving year, Lugar and his beloved wife were seen houseless.