to ftrike the dim fhield, on Selma's ftreamy rock. I rofe, in my rattling fteel; I knew that war was near. Before the winds our fails were fpread; when Lumon fhewed its ftreams to the morn. COME from the watching of night, Malvina, lonely beam! CATH ARGUMENT. Fingal, in one of his voyages to the Orkney islands, was driven, by ftrefs of weather, into a bay of Scandinavia, near the refidence of Starno, king of Lochlin. Starno invites Fingal to a feaft. Fingal, doubting the faith of the king, and mindful of his former breach of hofpitality, [Fingal, b. 3.] refuses to go.. -Starno gathers together his tribes: Fingal folves to defend himself. Night coming on, Duth-maruno propofes to Fingal, to obferve the motions of the enemy.-The king himself undertakes the watch. Advancing towards the enemy, he, accidentally, comes to the cave of Turthor, where Starho had confined Conban carglas, the captive daughter of a neighbouring chief. Her ftory is imperfect, a part of the original being loft.-Fingal comes to a place of worship, where Starno and his fon, Swaran, confulted the spirit of Loda, concerning the iffue of the war. The rencounter of Fingal and Swaran.-The duän concludes, with a defcription of the airy hall of Cruth-loda fuppofed to be the Odin of Scandinavia. CATH-L O D A: A POEM. DUAN FIRST. A TALE of the times of old!Why, thou wanderer unseen, that bendeft the thiftle of Lora,-why, thou breeze of the valley, haft thou left mine ear? I hear no diftant roar of * The bards diftinguished those compositions, in which the narration is often interrupted, by epifodes and apoftrophes, by the name of Duän. Since the extinction of the order of the bards, it has been a general name for ali ancient compofitions in verfe.-The abrupt manner in which the story of this poem begins, may render it obfcure to fome readers; it may not therefore be improper, to give here the traditional preface, which is generally prefixed to it. Two years after he took to wife Ros-crana, the daughter of Cormac, king of Ireland, Fingal undertook an expedition into Orkney, to vifit his friend Cathulla, king of Iniftore. |
