Autumn is dark on the mountains; gray mist rests on the hills. The whirlwind is heard on the heath. Dark rolls the river through the narrow plain. A tree stands alone on the hill and marks the slumbering Connal. The leaves whirl round with the wind and strew the graves of the dead.[421] The description of the desolation of Balclutha is the prelude to the song of mourning for the unhappy Moina.[422] The use of Nature in apostrophes is characteristic of the Ossian poems. Of these the most famous is the address to the sun.[422] There are frequent apostrophes to winds, streams, and tempests, to stars, and especially to the moon. Two good examples are the poet’s address to the evening star in “The Songs of Selma,” and to the moon in “Dar Thula.” Of these the second may be quoted as fairly typical: Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant! Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy blue course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O Moon! they brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, light of the silent night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence.... But thou thyself shalt fail one night, and leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift their heads.... Thou art now clothed with thy brightness. Look from thy gates in the sky. Burst the cloud, O wind! that the daughter of night may look forth; that the shaggy mountains may brighten, and the ocean roll its white waves in light. It will be observed that in almost every apostrophe there is beautiful external description together with an underlying analogy to the thought of the poem. In the passages quoted above, the triumphant brightness of the moon in her blue path, and the suggestion of the coming night when she shall fail in heaven, are but types of the beauty of Dar Thula and of the day when, though the winds of spring shall be abroad, though the flowers shall shake their heads on the green hills, and the woods shall wave their growing leaves, the white-bosomed maiden shall not again move in the steps of her loveliness.