Poetry

eyes the advancing Form:
And then he stood bewilder’d; and he dropp’d
His covering shield, and the spear pierc’d his side.
He reel’d, and staggering back, sunk to the ground.
And then the gloom dispers’d, and the wind fell,
And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all
The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair;
Saw Rostam standing, safe upon his feet,
And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand.
Then, with a bitter smile, Rostam began:⁠—
“Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill
A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse,
And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab’s tent.
Or else that the great Rostam would come down
Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move
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 replied:⁠—
“Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain.
Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man!
No! Rostam slays me, and this filial heart.
For were I match’d 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 unnerv’d my arm⁠—
That name, and something, I confess, in thee,
Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield
Fall; and thy spear transfix’d an unarm’d foe.
And now thou boastest, and insult’st my fate.
But hear thou this, fierce Man, tremble to hear!
The mighty Rostam 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 pierc’d her with an arrow as she rose,
And follow’d her to find her where she fell
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 Rostam 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 Rostam never had a son.”
And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied:⁠—
“Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I.
Surely the news will one day reach his ear,
Reach Rostam, where he sits, and tarries long,
Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here;
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 Azerbaijan dwells
With that old King, her father, who grows grey
With age, and rules over the valiant Koords.
Her most I pity, who no more will see
Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp,
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 ceas’d he wept aloud,
Thinking of her he left, and his own death.
He spoke; but Rostam listen’d, plung’d in thought.
Nor did he yet believe it was his son
Who spoke, although he call’d back names he knew;
For he had had sure tidings that the babe,
Which was in Azerbaijan born to him,
Had been a puny girl, no boy at all:
So that sad mother sent him word, for fear
Rostam should seek the boy, to train in arms;
And so he deem’d that either Sohrab took,
By a false boast, the style of Rostam’s son;
Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame.
So deem’d he; yet he listen’d, 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 gather’d in his eyes;
For he remember’d his own early youth,
And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn,
The Shepherd from his mountain lodge descries
A far, bright City, smitten by the sun,
Through many rolling clouds:⁠—so Rostam saw
His youth; saw Sohrab’s mother, in her bloom;
And that old King, her father, who lov’d well
His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child
With joy; and all the pleasant life they led,
They three, in that long-distant summer-time⁠—
The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt
And hound, and morn on those delightful hills
In Azerbaijan. And he saw that Youth,
Of age and looks to be his own dear son,
Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand,
Like some rich hyacinth, which by the scythe
Of an unskilful gardener has been cut,
Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed,
And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,
On the mown, dying grass;⁠—so Sohrab lay,
Lovely in death, upon the common sand.
And Rostam gaz’d on him with grief, and said:⁠—
“O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son
Whom Rostam, wert thou his, might well have lov’d!
Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men
Have told thee false;⁠—thou art not Rostam’s son.
For Rostam had no son: one child he had⁠—
But one⁠—a girl: who with her mother now
Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us⁠—
Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war.”
But Sohrab answer’d him in wrath; for now
The anguish of the deep-fix’d spear grew fierce,
And he desired to draw forth the steel,
And let the blood flow free, and so to die;
But first he would convince his stubborn foe⁠—
And, rising sternly on one