FRAGMENT I. James Macpherson Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T83707 K068251.000 Macpherson, James, 1736-1796 Fragments of ancient poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated from the Galic or Erse language. Edinburgh printed for G. Hamilton and J. Balfour 1760 pp. []-12. 70p.; 8⁰.

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FRAGMENT I . SHILRIC , VINVELA . VINVELA .

MY love is a son of the hill . He pursues the flying deer . His grey dogs are panting around him ; his bow-string sounds in the wind . Whether by the fount of the rock , or by the stream of the mountain thou liest ; when the rushes are nodding with the wind , and the mist is flying over thee , let me approach my love unperceived , and see him from the rock . Lovely I saw thee first by the aged oak ; thou wert returning tall from the chace ; the fairest among thy friends .

SHILRIC .

WHAT voice is that I hear ? that voice like the summer-wind . — I sit not by the nodding rushes ; I hear not the fount of the rock . Afar , Vinvela , afar I go to the wars of Fingal . My dogs attend me no more . No more I tread the hill . No more from on high I see thee , fair-moving by the stream of the plain ; bright as the bow of heaven ; as the moon on the western wave .

VINVELA .

THEN thou art gone , O Shilric ! and I am alone on the hill . The deer are seen on the brow ; void of fear they graze along . No more they dread the wind ; no more the rustling tree . The hunter is far removed ; he is in the field of graves . Strangers ! sons of the waves ! spare my lovely Shilric .

SHILRIC .

IF fall I must in the field , raise high my grave , Vinvela . Grey stones , and heaped-up earth , shall mark me to future times . When the hunter shall fit by the mound , and produce his food at noon , " some warrior rests here , " he will say ; and my fame shall live in his praise . Remember me , Vinvela , when low on earth I lie !

VINVELA .

YES ! — I will remember thee — indeed my Shilric will fall . What shall I do , my love ! when thou art gone for ever ? Through these hills I will go at noon : I will go through the silent heath . There I will see where often thou fattest returning from the chace . Indeed , my Shilric will fall ; but I will remember him .