CATHLIN OF CLUTHA:
a poem.
Come,[1] thou beam that art lonely, from watching in the night! The squally winds are around thee, from all their echoing hills. Red, over thy hundred streams, are the light-covered paths of the dead. They rejoice, on the eddying winds, in the season of night. Dwells there no joy in song, white hand of the harps of Lutha? Awake the voice of the string; roll my soul to me. It is a stream that has failed. Malvina, pour the song.
I hear thee, from thy darkness, in Selma, thou that watchest, lonely, by night! Why didst thou withhold the song, from Ossian's failing soul? As the falling brook to the ear of the hunter, descending from his storm-covered hill; in a sunbeam rolls the echoing stream; he hears, and shakes his dewy locks: such is the voice of Lutha, to the friend of the spirits of heroes. My swelling bosom beats high. I look back on the days that are past.
- ↑ The traditions, which accompany this poem, inform us, that it went, of old, under the name of Laoi-Oi-lutha; i.e., the hymn of the maid of Lutha.
