Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/124

86 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

Flowed with the stream; all down his cold white side

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

In-doors 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 high-reared

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.

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,