Galic Antiquities

A P O E M.. 317
that night, O bards, on the walls of echoing Tura. Their joyful,
trembling voice is up. Their found at a diftance is heard. The
red oak is in a blaze ; the fpire of its flame is high. The traveller
fees its light on the dufky heath, as night fpreads around
him her raven wings. He fees it, and is glad ; for he knows the
hall of the king. ' There,' he fays to his companion, we ' pais the
night. The door of Fingal is always open. The name of his hall is,
The flranger's home *."
The feaft is fpread. The king wonders that no ftranger from
the darkly heath is come. " I will liflen," he fays, " if I may hear
their wandering fteps." He goes. An aged bard meets him at
the door. On lefs than half a Ipear he leans his bending weight.
No fteel glitters on his blunt fpear: for the days of his llrife are
part ; his battles are all fought, and their noife is over.
The king, with joy, led the fli'anger in. We faw his grief-red
eye bedimmed with tears: we faw their path on his furrowed
cheek. His few gray hairs hang, a thin, twifled lock on either
fide, and mingle with the white beard on his breaft.
A youth (lands
behind him: his down-call face is the bed of grief: he bears the
harp of tlie bard.
We rife to give the flrangers place. We bid them partake
of our feafl that fmokes around. We bid the light of our joy
dif-
* Hofpitalitjr is one of thofe virtues many years (Tnce it \ras the general pracvrhich
lofe ground in proportion as civili-
ticetolook outevery evening, whether any
zation advances. It ftill fubfifts to a high ftranger appeared, before the doors were
degree in the Highlands; though vanifh- fliut. When any had caft up, the hoft had
ing fo faft, that, in fome years hence, its manifeftly more pleafure in giving, than
exiftence in feme parts may be as much the gueft in receiving, the entertainment.
doubted as that of fome other virtues a- Scd tcmpora muuntur, ct doj ir.utamur in illis.
fcribed by Ollian to his heroes. It is not • Si,