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