O that thou wouldst come to my hall when I am alone by night!
And thou dost come, my friend. I hear often thy light hand on my harp,
when it hangs on the distant wall, and the feeble sound touches my
ear. Why dost thou not speak to me in my grief, and tell me when I
shall behold my friends? But thou passest away in thy murmuring blast;
the wind whistles through the gray hairs of Ossian."
But most of all, those changes of moon and sheets of hurrying vapor
and black clouds, with the sense of rapid action in weird silence,
recall the far-back Erse belief that such above were the preparations
for receiving the wraiths of just-slain warriors--["We sat that night
in Selma, round the strength of the shell. The wind was abroad in
the oaks. The spirit of the mountain roar'd. The blast came rustling
through the hall, and gently touch'd my harp. The sound was mournful
and low, like the song of the tomb. Fingal heard it the first. The
crowded sighs of his bosom rose. Some of my heroes are low, said the
gray-hair'd king of Morven. I hear the sound of death on the harp.
Ossian, touch the trembling string. Bid the sorrow rise, that their
spirits may fly with joy to Morven's woody hills. I touch'd the harp
before the king; the sound was mournful and low. Bend forward from
your clouds, I said, ghosts of my fathers! bend. Lay by the red terror
of your course. Receive the falling chief; whether he comes from a
distant land, or rises from the rolling sea. Let his robe of mist be
near; his spear that is form'd of a cloud.
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