It was that Griffin, which of old rear'd Zal, Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign. eyes, To draw it, and forever let life out. But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, And with a soothing voice he spoke, and said: "Father, forbear: for I but meet to-day The doom that at my birth was written down In Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand. 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 engag'd 710 720 And swift; for like the lightning to this field I came, and like the wind I go awaySudden, and swift, and like a passing wind. But it was writ in Heaven that this should be." So said he and his voice releas'd the heart Of Rustum, and his tears broke forth; he cast His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud, And kiss'd him.' And awe fell on both the hosts When they saw Rustum's grief: and Ruksh, the horse, 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 mov'd 730 His head, as if inquiring what their grief Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes The big warm tears roll'd down, and cak'd the sand. But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said: "Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet Should then have rotted on their nimble joints, When first they bore thy Master to this field.' But Sohrab look'd upon the horse and said: "Is this then Ruksh? How often, in past days, 739 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 snuff'd the breezes of my father's home. And thou hast trod the sands of Seïstan, And seen the River of Helmund, and the Lake Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself Has often strok'd thy neck, and given thee food, Corn in a golden platter soak'd with wine, 751 And said 'O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!' but I Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face, Nor seen his lofty house in Seïstan, Nor slak'd my thirst at the clear Helmund stream: But lodg'd among my father's foes, and seen Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand, Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste, And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk The desert rivers, Moorghab and Tejend, 760 Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep, The northern Sir;1 and this great Oxus stream The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die.' And, with a heavy groan, Rustum replied: "Oh that its waves were flowing over me! "Desire not that, my father: thou must live. They follow'd me, my hope, my fame, my star. 781 But carry me with thee to Seïstan, And thou must lay me in that lovely earth, That so the passing horseman on the waste 791 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, 1 Syr Daria, cf. 1. 129 And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, And carry thee away to Seïstan, And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, And through whose death I won that fame I have; And I were nothing but a common man, 810 - Then, at the point of death, Sohrab re- "A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful Man! 832 "Soon be that day, my Son, and deep that sea! Till then, if Fate so wills, let me endure.” He spoke; and Sohrab smil'd 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 Flow'd with the stream: all down his cold white side The crimson torrent pour'd, dim now and soil'd, 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 high-rear'd By Jemshid' in Persepolis, to bear 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. 860 And night came down over the solemn And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, The Persians took it on the open sands waste, Under the solitary moon: he flow'd Right for the Polar Star, past Orgunjè,3 1 a mythical king who reigned 700 years; the black granite pillars found at Persepolis in Persia are called the ruins of his throne 2 Chorasmia on the Oxus was once the seat of a great empire. a village on the Oxus 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 His luminous home of waters opens, bright stars Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. PHILOMELA Hark! ah, the Nightingale !1 The tawny-throated! Hark! from that moonlit cedar what a burst! O Wanderer from a Grecian shore, The too clear web, and thy dumb Sister's Dost thou once more assay 1 Cf. the other nightingale poems in this volume and the story of Philomela in Gayley's Classic Myths, p. 258. ΤΟ seen 9 Cross and recross the strips of moonblanch'd green; Come, Shepherd, and again renew the quest. Here, where the reaper was at work of late, In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,2 And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves, Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use; Here will I sit and wait, While to my ear from uplands far away 17 The bleating of the folded flocks is borne; With distant cries of reapers in the cornAll the live murmur of a summer's day. Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field, And here till sun-down, Shepherd, will I be. Through the thick corn, the scarlet poppies peep, And round green roots and yellowing stalks Had found him seated at their entering. 60 1 The Vanity of Dogmatizing, by Joseph Glanvil (1661), contains the story on which this poem is based. 2 Cumner Hurst, a hill southwest of Oxford 3 bench in the chimney-corner farmlaborers in smock-frocks (outer garments like shirts or blouses) MATTHEW ARNOLD But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly: And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place; Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer 'Mid wide grass meadows which the sun- And watch the Cumner hills, warm green-muffled And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats. At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills, For cresses from the rills, And mark'd thee, when the stars come Through the long dewy grass move slow away. ΙΙΟ And once, in winter, on the causeway chill travellers go, Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden bridge Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, 1 the pool of slack water below a dam |