Poetry · Sohrab and Rostam 28 (3/3)

Sohrab, the mighty Rostam’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, Rostam 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 Sistan,

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 whom I have ever slain

Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes,

And they who were call’d 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!

Or rather would that I, even I myself,

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 Sistan;

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.”

Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied:⁠—

“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,

Thou and the other peers of Kay Khosrow,

Returning home over the salt blue sea,

From laying thy dear Master in his grave.”

And Rostam gaz’d 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 smil’d on him, and took

The spear, and drew it from his side, and eas’d

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 ran, dim now, and soil’d,

Like the soil’d tissue of white violets

Left, freshly gather’d, on their native bank,

By romping children, whom their nurses call

From the hot fields at noon: his head droop’d 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,

Convuls’d him back to life, he open’d them,

And fix’d them feebly on his father’s face:

Till now all strength was ebb’d, 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 Rostam 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 Rostam by his son.

And night came down over the solemn waste,

And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,

And darken’d all; and a cold fog, with night,

Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,

As of a great assembly loos’d, and fires

Began to twinkle through the fog: for now

Both armies mov’d to camp, and took their meal:

The Persians took it on the open sands

Southward; the Tartars by the river marge:

And Rostam 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 mov’d,

Rejoicing, through the hush’d Chorasmian waste,

Under the solitary moon: he flow’d

Right for the Polar Star, past Orgunjè,

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 parcell’d Oxus strains along

Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles⁠—

Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had

In his high mountain cradle in Pamir,

A foil’d circuitous wanderer:⁠—till at last

The long’d-for dash of waves is heard, and wide

His luminous home of waters opens, bright

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bath’d stars

Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.