From the wood-skirted waters of Lego
Ascend, at times, grey-bosomed mists,
When the gates of the west are closed
On the sun's eagle eye.

Wide over Lara's stream,

Is poured the vapour dark and deep:
The moon, like a dim shield,

Is swimming through its folds.

In some of these lines the harmony is superior, in others, again, it is inferior, in English, as the expression is abridged; but, in general, the measure, or recitative of the two versions (From the wood-skirted waters of Lego; O linna doir choille na Leigo), is almost identical; without any greater difference than such additional ease, or constraint, as is introduced into the different copies, or forms, of the Six Bards. The execution of the two versions by the same person, upon the same principle of parallelisms, and nearly, perhaps, at the same period, can alone account for the exact coincidence of cach line in Earse, both in sense and cadence, with the corresponding clause of each sentence in the English original.

It was dark!

The sleeping hosts were still;

In the (red) skirts of night.

'S dolloir so!

Ata na sloigh na nsuain, san am

An truscan cear na h'oicha.

Lumon of the streams!

Thou risest on Fonar's soul: (my soul)

The sun is on thy side,

On the rocks of thy bending trees.

Lumon na sruth!

'Ta u dealra, air m' anam fein:

'Ta do ghrian, air do thaobh
Air carric na neran bu trom.

Lumon of foamy streams!
Thou risest on Fonar's soul.
Lumon na sruth!

Ta u dealra air m'anam fein.

Ullin, Carril, and Ryno!

Voices of the times of old,

Let me hear you while yet it is dark,

To please and awake my soul.

Ullin, a Charril, a Raono!

Guith a dh'aom o-shean,

Cluinim siobh an dorchadas Shelma

Agus mosglibhse anam nan dan !

In these specimens, the cadence and length of the line are exactly suited and adapted to the sense; for which the reason is sufficiently obvious. Verse alone can sustain a regular cadence distinct from the sense; but where there is no regular return of numbers, the sense and cadence, as in every prose composition, must always coincide. But it is not difficult to determine, whether these expressions, "It is dark;" "Lumon of the streams;" "Ullin, Carril, and Ryno," are translations of such fantastic lines, as "S' dolloir so;" "Lumon na sruth;" "Ullin, a Charril, a Raono;" or whether the latter are not short clauses of sentences literally wanslated from the English original, and printed like verse.

DEATH:

A POEM.

DEATH':

A POEM.

COME melancholy, soul-o'erwhelming power!
Woe's sable child! sweet meditation come;
Come, pensive gaited, from thy hermit cell,
Brood wide o'er life, and all its transient joys,
The noisy follies, and corroding strifes :
Shut the pleas'd ear from harmony and song;
And from the heart ensnaring voice of fame.

5

1 The two first poems, entitled DEATH, and the HUNTER, are printed from a manuscript in Macpherson's hand-writing, discovered in the Highlands many years ago, and most liberally communicated to me by the Rev. Mr Anderson, minister of Kingussie. They are published, not on account of their poetical merit, but as Macpherson's first rude essays in English poetry, and as historical evidence that he was a heroic poet from his earlier years. The manuscript is evidently the first rough draught of his compositions; and contains memorandums concerning his school and house-keeping at Ruthven, in Badenoch, with a few dates, from which the Hunter appears to have been written towards the end of the year 1756. The poem upon Death is an earlier and worse composition; but they are both marked with the same extravagance of sentiment and diction that prevails in Ossian ;