tared at Conn,
Were stooping on the high Look-Out.
They watched the ship that tacked about,
Now slant across the firth, and now
Laid bare below the cliff's broad brow,
And heaving on a billowy steep,
Like to a monster of the deep
That wallowed, labouring in pain--
And Conn stared back with cold disdain.

Pondering, he sat alone behind
The broad sail swallowing the wind,
As over the hollowing waves that leapt
And snarled with foaming lips, and swept
Around the bows in querulous fray,
And tossed in curves of drenching spray,
The belching ship with ardour drove;
Then like a lordly elk that strove
Amid the hounds and, charging, rent
The pack asunder as it went,
It bore round and in beauty sprang--
The sea-wind through the cordage sang
With high and wintry merriment
That stirred the heart of Conn, intent
On vengeance, and for battle keen--
So hard, so steadfast, and serene.

Then Ossian, sweet of speech, spake low,
With musing eyes upon the foe,
"Is Conn more noble than The Red,
Whom Goll in battle vanquished?"
"The Red was fiercer," Conan cried--
"Nay, Conn is nobler," Finn replied,
"More comely, stalwart, mightier far--
What sayest thou, Goll, my man of war?"
Then Goll made answer on the steep,
Nor ceased to gaze on Conn full deep--
"His equal never came before
Across the seas to Alban shore,
Nor ever have I peered upon
A nobler, mightier man than Conn"

The ship flew seaward, tacking wide,
Contending with the wind and tide,
And when upon the broad stream's track
It baffled hung, or drifted back,
With grunt and shriek, like battling boars,
The shock and swing of bladed oars
Came sounding o'er the sea

The dusk
Grew round the twilight, like a husk
That holds a kernel choice, and keen,
Cold stars impaled the sky serene,
When Conn's ship through the slackening tide
Drew round the wistful bay and wide,
Behind the headlands high that snout
The seas like giant whales, and spout
The salt foam high and loud

Then sighed
The gasping men who all day plied
Their oars in plunging seas, with hands
Grown stiff, and arms, like twisted bands
Drawn numbly, as they rose outspent,
And staggering from their benches went
The sail napped quarrelling, and drank
The wind in broken gasps, and sank
With sullen pride upon the boards,
And smote the mast and shook the cords

Darkly loomed that alien land,
And darkly lowered the Fian band,
For hovering on the sho