On Dora’s hill, the fires of parting day,
With soften’d lustre, shed the yellow ray;
Yet scarce they sunk behind the mountain’s breast
Ere gathering storms the fading scene invest.
Loud hollow gales fell murmuring on the floods,
And shook Temora through his bending woods.
One ample cloud a sable curtain rear’d,
And faint, behind its edge, a red star peer’d,
And in its shade a tall, unreal form
Stalk’d through the air, and mourn’d amid the storm.
His lengthen’d steps o’er the vast mountain pass’d,
And his broad shield a pale effulgence cast.
Too well Cuchullin’s faded form I knew,
Yet, ere my lips could breathe their last adieu,
Swift, on his howling blast, away he strode,
And night, and horror, gather’d on the wood.