To liken a host of warriors unto a ‘gathered cloud’ or a ‘ridge of mist’ is a favorite device of Ossian, and similarly in Sc. 2 of the _Hermannsschlacht_,[108] two choruses sing:
... Da zogen wir Deutschen uns Zusammen gleich einer Wolke.
And in the third scene a bard remarks: “Sie ziehn sich, wie ein dicker Nebel, langsam in den Vorderbusch.” And when the bards sing in the second scene:
Weit halle dein Schild! dein Schlachtruf töne, Wie das Weltmeer an dem Felsengestade!
we can point to Ossian’s shouts that are “louder than a storm” or like “thunder on distant hills.”
“Die Flamme des gerechten Zorns,” _Hermannsschlacht_, chorus, Sc. 3, calls up Ossian’s ‘flame of wrath,’ but undoubtedly the Bible is the source of both.
Seht ihr nicht auf der Mondglanzwolke An der Eiche Wipfel, Eure Brüder schweben, und eure Väter? . . . . . Sie blicken auf euch herab.
Similarly in Ossian the ghosts of the fathers that float on clouds look down upon the warriors.
Wie des Wiederhalls in der Sommernacht war seines Schildes Ton, Wie des vollen Mondes der Glanz!
and so “Carric–Thura,” p. 151, l. 27, “That shield like the full–orbed moon,” etc., and echoing shields without number.
One striking feature of the Highland scenery according to Ossian is the fact that everything—forest and heath, bay and stream, grove and vale, hill and isle, rocks and fields and banks and walls and numerous other things—is very susceptible to the echo, “the son of the rock,” and the fondness that Klopstock and the bards begin to exhibit for the echo about this time must be traced back largely to Ossian. In addition to the passage just quoted, we have in Sc. 2, _e. g._, “Wir haben ... den Gesang in den Felsen des Wiederhalls gehört,” “Lasst die Namen ... in allen Felsen des Wiederhalls laut tönen,” etc. In the same scene the bards sing:
Ruf in des Wiederhalls Felsengebirg Durch das Graun des nächtlichen Hains, Dass . . . . . . Es ertöne wie ein Donnersturm!