His heart to take a gift, and let thee go. And then that all the Tartar host would praise Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame, To glad thy father in his weak old age. Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man! Dearer to the red jackals shalt thou be Than to thy friends, and to thy father old." And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab re- plied:- 540 "Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain.
And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee. Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son! What will that grief, what will that vengeance be?
Oh, could I live, till I that grief had seen! Yet him I pity not so much, but her, My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells With that old king, her father, who grows gray With age, and rules over the valiant Koords. Her most I pity, who no more will see
Thou dost not slay me, proud and' boastful Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp, man!
No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. For were I matched with ten such men as thee, And I were that which till to-day I was, They should be lying here, I standing there. But that belovèd name unnerved my arm- That name, and something, I confess, in thee, Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield
With spoils and honour, when the war is done. But a dark rumour will be bruited up, From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear; And then will that defenceless woman learn That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more, But that in battle with a nameless foe, By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain." He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, Thinking of her he left, and his own death. Fall; and thy spear transfixed an unarmed He spoke; but Rustum listened, plunged in foe. And now thou boastest, and insult 'st my fate. But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death! My father, whom I seek through all the world, He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!" As when some hunter in the spring hath found
A breeding eagle sitting on her nest, Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake, And pierced her with an arrow as she rose, And followed her to find her where she fell 560 Far off;-anon her mate comes winging back From hunting, and a great way off descries His huddling young left sole; at that, he checks His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps Circles above his eyry, with loud screams Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she Lies dying, with the arrow in her side, In some far stony gorge out of his ken, A heap of fluttering feathers-never more Shall the lake glass her, flying over it; Never the black and dripping precipices Echo her stormy scream as she sails by- As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood Over his dying son, and knew him not.
But, with a cold incredulous voice, he said:"What prate is this of fathers and revenge? The mighty Rustum never had a son.''
And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied:"Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I. 580 Surely the news will one day reach his ear, Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long, Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here,
did he yet believe it was his son
spoke, although he called back names he knew;
For he had had sure tidings that the babe, Which was in Ader-baijan born to him, | Had been a puny girl, no boy at all— So that sad mother sent him word, for fear 610 Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms. And so he deemed that either Sohrab took, By a false boast, the style of Rustum's son; Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. So deemed he; yet he listened, plunged in thought.
And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore At the full moon; tears gathered in his eyes; For he remembered his own early youth, And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn, 620 The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries A far, bright city, smitten by the sun, Through many rolling clouds-so Rustum saw His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom; And that old king, her father, who loved well His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child
And falsehood, while I lived, was far from And threw it on his head, and smirched his mine.
I tell thee, pricked upon this arm I bear That seal which Rustum to my mother gave,
701 His hair, and face, and "beard, and glittering arms;
That she might prick it on the babe she bore." And strong convulsive groanings shook his He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks,
661 And his sobs choked him; and he clutched his
And his knees tottered, and he smote his hand Against his breast, his heavy mailèd hand, That the hard iron corslet clanked aloud; And to his heart he pressed the other hand, And in a hollow voice he spake, and said:- "Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie!
If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's
Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm, And showed a sign in faint vermilion points Pricked; as a cunning workman, in Pekin, Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase,
An emperor's gift-at early morn he paints, And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp
Surely my heart cried out that it was thou, When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too, I know it! but fate trod those promptings down
Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged The strife, and hurled me on my father's spear. But let us speak no more of this! I find My father; let me feel that I have found!
Lights up his studious forehead and thin Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take
So delicately pricked the sign appeared
My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks, And wash them with thy tears, and say: My son!
On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal. It was that griffin, which of old reared Zal, Rustum's great father, whom they left to die, A helpless babe, among the mountain-rocks; 681 And swift; for like the lightning to this field
Quick! quick! for numbered are my sands of life,
I came, and like the wind I go away- Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind. But it was writ in Heaven that this should be." So said he, and his voice released the heart Of Rustum, and his tears broke forth; he cast His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud, And kissed him. And awe fell on both the hosts,
When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the horse, 730 With his head bowing to the ground and mane Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe First to the one, then to the other moved His head, as if inquiring what their grief Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes,
The big warm tears rolled down, and caked the sand.*
They followed me, my hope, my fame, my star. But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. said:
"Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet
Should first have rotted on their nimble joints, Or ere they brought thy master to this field!'' But Sohrab looked upon the horse and said:741 "Is this, then, Ruksh? How often, in past days,
My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed, My terrible father's terrible horse! and said, That I should one day find thy lord and thee. Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane! O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I; For thou hast gone where I shall never go, And snuffed the breezes of my father's home, And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, 750 And seen the River of Helmund, and the Lake Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food,
Corn in a golden platter soaked with wine, And said: O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!—but I Have never known my grandsire's furrowed face,
Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan,
Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream;
But me thou must bear hence, not send with them,
But carry me with thee to Seistan, And place me on a bed, and mourn for me, Thou, and the snow-haired Zal, and all thy friends.
And thou must lay me in that lovely earth, And heap a stately mound above my bones, And plant a far-seen pillar over all. That so the passing horseman on the waste 790 May see my tomb a great way off, and cry: Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there, Whom his great father did in ignorance kill! And I be not forgotten in my grave."
And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied:
"Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son, So shall it be; for I will burn my tents, And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, And carry thee away to Seistan,
And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends, And I will lay thee in that lovely earth, And heap a stately mound above thy bones, And plant a far-seen pillar over all, And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go! Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace! What should I do with slaying any more? For would that all that I have ever slain Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes, 810 And they who were called champions in their time,
And through whose death I won that fame I have
And I were nothing but a common man, A poor, mean soldier, and without renown, So thou mightest live too, my son, my son!
* Compare the action of the horse of Achilles, Or rather would that I, even I myself, Iliad, xix, end.
Might now be lying on this bloody sand, Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine, Not thou of mine; and I might die, not thou; And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan; 820 And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine; And say: O son, I weep thee not too sore, For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end! But now in blood and battles was my youth, And full of blood and battles is my age, And I shall never end this life of blood."
His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps
Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side- So in the sand lay Rustum by his son.
And night came down over the solemn waste, And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, And darkened all; and a cold fog, with night, Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose As of a great assembly loosed, and fires Began to twinkle through the fog; for now 870
Then, at the point of death, Sohrab re- Both armies moved to camp, and took their plied:"A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man! But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now, Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day, When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, 831 Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo, Returning home over the salt blue sea, From laying thy dear master in his grave.' And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said:
"Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea! Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure."
He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took
The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased His wound's imperious anguish; but the blood Came welling from the open gash, and life 841 Flowed with the stream;-all down his cold
The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soiled, Like the soiled tissue of white violets Left, freshly gathered, on their native bank, By children whom their nurses call with haste Indoors from the sun's eye; his head drooped low,
His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay-
White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps, Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame,
Convulsed him back to life, he opened them, And fixed them feebly on his father's face; Till now all strength was ebbed, and from his limbs
Unwillingly the spirit fled away,
Regretting the warm mansion which it left, And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world.
So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead; And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak
Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son. As those black granite pillars, once highreared
By Jemshid1 in Persepolis, to bear
The Persians took it on the open sands Southward, the Tartars by the river marge; And Rustum and his son were left alone. But the majestic river floated on, Out of the mist and hum of that low land, Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste,
Under the solitary moon;-he flowed Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè,2 Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many a league The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles- Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere, A foiled circuitous wanderer-till at last The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright 890 And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.
* See the familiar story of Philomela and Procne in Greek mythology. The poem is evidently addressed to a friend, "Eugenia."
Dost thou once more assay
Thy flight, and feel come over thee,
Poor fugitive, the feathery change
And so he bore the imperial name. But ah, his sire!
Soon, soon the days conviction bring. The collie hair, the collie swing, The tail's indomitable ring,
The eye's unrest
The case was clear; a mongrel thing Kai stood confest.
But all those virtues, which commend The humbler sort who serve and tend, Were thine in store, thou faithful friend. What sense, what cheer!
Once more, and once more seem to make re- To us, declining towards our end,
With love and hate, triumph and agony,
Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?
For Max, thy brother-dog, began To flag, and feel his narrowing span.
How thick the bursts come crowding through And cold, besides, his blue blood ran,
What, Kaiser dead? The heavy news Post-haste to Cobham1 calls the Muse, From where in Farringford2 she brews The ode sublime,
Or with Pen-bryn's bold bard3 pursues A rival rhyme.
Kai's bracelet tail, Kai's busy feet, Were known to all the village-street. "What, poor Kai dead?" say all I meet; "A loss indeed!''
O for the croon pathetic, sweet, Of Robin's reed! 4
Six years ago I brought him down, A baby dog, from London town;
Round his small throat of black and brown A ribbon blue,
And vouched by glorious renown A dachshound true.
His mother, most majestic dame,
Of blood-unmixed, from Potsdam came; And Kaiser's race we deemed the same- No lineage higher.
1 In Surrey, where Arnold was then living.
2 Tennyson's home on the Isle of Wight.
3 Sir Lewis Morris lived at Pen-bryn, in Wales.
Since, 'gainst the classes,
He heard, of late, the Grand Old Man Incite the Masses.6
Yes, Max and we grew slow and sad; But Kai, a tireless shepherd lad, Teeming with plans, alert, and glad In work or play,
Like sunshine went and came, and bade Live out the day!
Still, still I see the figure smart- Trophy in mouth, agog to start, Then, home returned, once more depart; Or prest together
Against thy mistress, loving heart, In winter weather.
I see the tail, like bracelet twirled, In moments of disgrace uncurled, 12 Then at a pardoning word re-furled, A conquering sign;
4 Adapted from Burns's Poor Mailie's Elegy, which Arnold is imitating.
5 A residence of the German emperor.
Crying, "Come on, and range the world, And never pine."
6 A mild thrust at Gladstone and his Home Rule Bill.
7 Mourned in a previous elegy, Geist's Grare.
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