Galic Antiquities

202 D E R M I D:
branch.—Bvit Oflian is a tree that is withered*. Its branches are
blafted and bare ;
no green leaf covers its boughs. From its trunk
no young fhoot is feen to fpring. The breeze whiftles in its gray
mofs :
the blafl fliakes its head of age.—The florm will foon overturn
it, and ftrew all its dry branches with thee, O Dermid ! and
with all the reft of the mighty dead, in the green winding vale
Cona.
How peaceful art thou, O vale of Cona !
hunters are all gone to reft.
of
Thy warriors and thy
Let the bed be alfo made for the bard
for the fliades of night thicken around him, and his eyes are
heavy.
* No image could better reprefent the guage, and highly congenial to the more
forlorn condition of the poet than this foft and mournful feelings,
which he has chofen. The words, too, Thamifemarghcig nah aonar,
in which he defcribes it, are full of that
foft and mournful found which is expreffed
in the Galic by the diphthong ao, and
the tripthong aoi; founds which, fo far as
I know, are peculiar to the Galic lan-
Si gu mofgain maol gHn duilcach.
Gun mhaothan ri taobh, no ogan,
Ach ofiia bhroin a' caoi' na mullach.
'S fogiis an (luiniiin,
a fgaoilcas
A crionach aofd' air fcadh a glilinne.
Mu leabaidh Dhiarmaid s nan laoch lilgliji'
Atg Caothaii nan luban uaine.
FINAN