From some high station he looks down,
At sunset, on a populous town;
Surveys each happy group which fleets,
Toil ended, through the shining streets,
Each with some errand of its own, -
And does not say, I am alone.
He sees the gentle stir of birth
When morning purifies the earth;
He leans upon a gate, and sees
The pastures, and the quiet trees.
Low, woody hill, with gracious bound,
Folds the still valley almost round;
The cuckoo, loud on some high lawn,
Is answered from the depth of dawn;
In the hedge straggling to the stream,
Pale, dew-drenched, half-shut roses gleam.
But, where the farther side slopes down,
He sees the drowsy new-waked clown
In his white quaint-embroidered frock
Make, whistling, toward his mist-wreathed
flock,
Slowly, behind his heavy tread, The wet, flowered grass heaves up its head.
Leaned on his gate, he gazes: tears
Are in his eyes, and in his ears
The murmur of a thousand years.
Before him he sees life unroll,
A placid and continuous whole,
That general life, which does not cease,
Whose secret is not joy, but peace;
That life, whose dumb wish is not missed
If birth proceeds, if things subsist;
The life of plants, and stoues, and rain,
The life he craves if not in vain
Fate gave, what chance shall not control,
His sad lucidity of soul.
You listen; but that wandering smile,
Fausta, betrays you cold the while!
Your eyes pursue the bells of foam
Washed, eddying, from this bank, their
home.
Those gypsies so your thoughts I scan
Are less, the poet more, than man.
They feel not, though they move and see.
Deeper the poet feels; but he
Breathes, when he will, immortal air,
Where Orpheus and where Homer are.
In the day's life, whose iron round
Hems us all in, he is not bound;
He leaves his kind, o'erleaps their pen,
And flees the common life of men.
He escapes thence, but we abide.
Not deep the poet sees, but wide.
Judge vain beforehand human cares;
Whose natural insight can discern
What through experience others learn;
Who needs not love and power, to know
Love transient, power an unreal show;
Who treads at ease life's uncheered ways:
Him blame not, Fausta, rather praise!
Rather thyself for some aim pray,
Nobler than this, to fill the day;
Rather that heart, which burns in thee,
Ask, not to amuse, but to set free;
Be passionate hopes not ill resigned
For quiet, and a fearless mind.
And though fate grudge to thee and me
The poet's rapt security,
Yet they, believe me, who await
No gifts from chance, have conquered fate.
They, winning room to see and hear,
And to men's business not too near,
Through clouds of individual strife
Draw homeward to the general life.
Like leaves by suns not yet uncurled;
To the wise, foolish; to the world,
Weak: yet not weak, I might reply,
Not foolish, Fausta, in His eye,
To whom each moment in its race,
Crowd as we will its neutral space,
Is but a quiet watershed
Whence, equally, the seas of life and death
Enough, we live! and if a life
With large results so little rife,
Though bearable, seem hardly worth
This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth; Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread,
"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I.
The sun has not yet risen, and the foe
Sleep but I sleep not; all night long I lie
Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee.
For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek
Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son,
In Samarcand, before the army marched; 40
And I will tell thee what my heart desires.
Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan
first
I came among the Tartars, and bore arms,
I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown,
At my boy's years, the courage of a man.
This too thou know'st, that while I still
bear on
The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world,
And beat the Persians back on every field, I seek one man, one man, and one alone,Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet,
Should one day greet, upon some wellfought field,
His not unworthy, not inglorious son.
So I long hoped, but him I never find.
Come then, hear now, and grant me what I
Let the two armies rest to-day; but I
Will challenge forth the bravest Persian
lords
To meet me, man to man: if I prevail,
Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall-
Old man, the dead need no one, claim no
kin.
Dim is the rumor of a common fight, 60
To us; fain therefore send thee hence in peace 89
To seek thy father, not seek single fights In vain. But who can keep the lion's cub From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son ?
Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires." So said he, and dropped Sohrab's hand, and left
His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay; And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat He passed, and tied his sandals on his feet, And threw a white cloak round him, and he took
In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword; And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap, Black, glossy, curled, the fleece of Kara-Kul;
And Feraburz, who ruled the Persian host Second, and was the uncle of the king; These came and counselled, and then Gudurz said,
"Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up,
Yet champion have we none to match this youth.
He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart. But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits
And sullen, and has pitched his tents apart. Him will I seek, and carry to his ear 180 The Tartar challenge, and this young man's
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