moor-winds when they leave
The fume of myrtle, on a dewy eve,
Bound flush'd and teeming tarns that all night hear
Low elfin pipings in the woodlands near.

'Twas thus he sang of love, and in a dream
The fair maids sighed to hear. But when his theme
Was the long chase that Finn and all his men
Followed with lightsome heart from glen to glen--
His song was free as morn, and clear and loud
As skylarks carolling below a cloud
In sweet June weather ... And they heard the fall
Of mountain streams, the huntsman's windy call
Across the heaving hills, the baying hound
Among the rocks, while echoes answered round--
They heard, and shared the gladness of the chase.

He sang the glories of the Fian race,
Whose fame is flashed through Alba far and wide--
Their valorous deeds he sang with joy and pride ...
When their dark foemen from the west came o'er
The ragged hills, and when on Croumba's shore
The Viking hordes descending, fought and fled--
And when brave Conn, who would avenge the Red,
By one-eyed Goll was slain. Of Finn he sang,
And Dermaid, while the clash of conflict rang
In billowy music through the heroes' hall--
And many a Fian gave the battle-call
When Ossian sang.

Haggard and old, with slow
And falt'ring steps, went Winter through the snow,
As if its dreary round would ne'er be done--
The last long winter of their days--begun
Ere yet the latest flush of falling leaves
Had faded in the breath of chilling eves;
Nor ended in the days of longer light,
When dawn and eve encroached upon the night--
A weary time it was! The long Strath lay
Snow-wreathed and pathless, and from day to day
The tempests raved across the low'ring skies,
And they grew weak and pale, with hollow eyes,
The while their stores shrank low, waiting the dawn
Of that sweet season when through woodlands wan
Fresh flowers flutter and the wild birds sing--
For Winter on the forelock of the Spring
Its icy fingers laid. The huntsmen pined
In their dim dwellings, wearily confined,
While the loud, hungry tempest held its sway--
The red-eyed wolves grew bold and came by day,
And birds fell frozen in the snow.

Then through
The trackless Strath a balmy south wind blew
To usher lusty Spring. Lo! in a night
The snows 'gan shrinking upon plain and height,
And morning broke in brightness to the sound
Of falling waters, while a peace profound
Possessed the world around them, and the blue
Bared hea