Who lie on the heath beside me?  Are they my love and my brother?  Speak to me, O my friends!  To Colma they give no reply.  Speak to me:  I am alone!  My soul is tormented with fears!  Ah, they are dead!  Their swords are red from the fight.  O my brother! my brother! why hast thou slain my Salgar?  Why, O Salgar! hast thou slain my brother?  Dear were ye both to me! what shall I say in your praise?  Thou wert fair on the hill among thousands! he was terrible in fight.  Speak to me; hear my voice; hear me, sons of my love!  They are silent; silent for ever!  Cold, cold are their breasts of clay.  Oh! from the rock on the hill; from the top of the windy steep, speak, ye ghosts of the dead! speak, I will not be afraid!  Whither are ye gone to rest?  In what cave of the hill shall I find the departed?  No feeble voice is on the gale; no answer half-drowned in the storm!

I sit in my grief?  I wait for morning in my tears!  Rear the tomb, ye friends of the dead.  Close it not till Colma come.  My life flies away like a dream! why should I stay behind?  Here shall I rest with my friends, by the stream of the sounding rock.  When night comes on the hill; when the loud winds arise; my ghost shall stand in the blast, and mourn the death of my friends.  The hunter shall hear from his booth.  He shall fear, but love my voice!  For sweet shall my voice be for my friends:  pleasant were her friends to Colma!

  [THE LAST WORDS OF OSSIAN]

Such were the words of the bards in the days of song; when the king heard the music of harps, the tales of other times!  The chiefs gathered from all their hills and heard the lovely sound.  They praised the voice of Cona [Ossian], the first among a thousand bards!  But age is now on my tongue; my soul has failed!  I hear at times the ghosts of bards, and learn their pleasant song.  But memory fails on my mind.  I hear the call of years!  They say as they pass along, why does Ossian sing?  Soon shall he lie in the narrow house, and no bard shall raise his fame!  Roll on, ye dark-brown years; ye bring no joy on your course!  Let the tomb open to Ossian, for his strength has failed.  The sons of song are gone to rest.  My voice remains, like a blast that roars lonely on a sea-surrounded rock, after the winds are laid.  The dark moss whistles there; the distant mariner sees the waving trees!

  CHRISTOPHER SMART

  FROM A SONG TO DAVID

  Strong is the lion-like a coal
  His eyeball, like a bastion’s mole
  His chest against the foes;
  Strong the gier-eagle on his sail;
  Strong against tide th’ enormous whale
  Emerges as he goes: 

  But stronger still, in earth and air
  And in the sea, the man of prayer,
  And far beneath the tide,
  And in the seat to faith assigned,
  Where ask is have, where seek is find,
  Where knock is open wide.

  Beauteous the fleet before the gale;
  Beauteous the multitudes in mail,
  Ranked arms and crested heads;
  Beauteous the garden’s umbrage mild,
  Walk, water, meditated wild,
  And all the bloomy beds;