“Why should Ossian sing of battles? For never more shall my steel shine in war. I remember the days of my youth with grief; when I feel the weakness of my arm. Happy are they who fell in their youth, in the midst of their renown! They have not beheld the tombs of their friends, or failed to bend the bow of their strength.”

— James Macpherson

"The War of Caros"
The Poems of Ossian

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James Macpherson 46

Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician 1736–1796

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“Son of my son," begun the king, "O Oscar, pride of youth! I saw the shining of thy sword, I gloried in my race. Pursue the fame of our fathers; be thou what they have been, when Trenmor lived, the first of men, and Trathal the father of heroes! They fought the battle in their youth. They are the song of bards. O Oscar! bend the strong in arm: but spare the feeble hand. Be thou a stream of many tides against the foes of thy people; but like the gale, that moves the grass, to those who ask thine aid. So Trenmor lived; such Trathal was; and such has Fingal been. My arm was the support of the injured; the weak rested behind the lightning of my steel.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

Book III. Compare: Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. ("Spare the conquered, battle down the proud.") Virgil, Aeneid (19 BC), Book VI, line 853 (tr. Robert Fitzgerald).
The Poems of Ossian, Fingal, an ancient Epic Poem

“In my days of youth, I remembered my God,
And he hath not forgotten my age.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

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“In my sleep, which is the song of the tombs, I have just seen her again, as beautiful as in her youth.”

Albert Cohen (1895–1981) Swiss writer

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“I always dreamed in my youth of a great, consuming love. I was often disappointed and returned each time to my music for consolation. It never failed me.”

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“I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

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“When youth was lord of my unchallenged fate,
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“Happy those early days, when I
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“Friends of my youth, a last adieu! haply some day we meet again;
Yet ne'er the self-same men shall meet; the years shall make us other men.”

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James Macpherson 46

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