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 Kai-Khosroo, Returning home over the salt blue sea, From laying thy dear Master in his grave." 830 And Rustum gazed on 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 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

840

The crimson torrent pour'd, 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 clos'd; 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,

850

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 loosed, and fires Began to twinkle through the fog: for now Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal: 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 mov'd,

870

517

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 880
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain cradle in Pamere,
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.

PHILOMELA

Hark! ah, the Nightingale!

The tawny-throated!

Hark! from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark - what pain!

O Wanderer from a Grecian shore,
Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain
That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world
pain

The too clear web, and thy dumb Sister's shame?
Dost thou once more assay

Thy flight, and feel come over thee,
Poor Fugitive, the feathery change
Once more,
and once more seem to make resound
With love and hate, triumph and agony,
Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?
Listen, Eugenia

How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves!

But once, years after, in the country lanes,
Two scholars whom at college erst he knew
Met him, and of his way of life enquir'd.
Whereat he answer'd, that the Gipsy crew,

His mates, had arts to rule as they desir'd
The workings of men's brains;

And they can bind them to what thoughts they will:

"And I," he said, "the secret of their art, When fully learn'd, will to the world impart: But it needs happy moments for this skill." This said, he left them, and return'd no more, 51 But rumours hung about the country side That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, Seen by rare glimpses pensive and tongue-tied, In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey. The same the Gipsies wore. Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring: At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire

Her graces make him rich, and ask

No guerdon; this imperial style Affronts him; he disdains to bask,

The pensioner of her priceless smile. He prays for some hard thing to do, Some work of fame and labour immense, To stretch the languid bulk and thew Of love's fresh-born magnipotence. No smallest boon were bought too dear, Though bartered for his love-sick life; Yet trusts he, with undaunted cheer,

To vanquish heaven, and call her Wife. He notes how queens of sweetness still Neglect their crowns, and stoop to mate; How, self-consign'd with lavish will, They ask but love proportionate; How swift pursuit by small degrees, Love's tactic, works like miracle; How valour, clothed in courtesies, Brings down the loftiest citadel; And therefore, though he merits not To kiss the braid upon her skirt, His hope discouraged ne'er a jot, Out-soars all possible desert.

BOOK I, CANTO VIII. PRELUDES
I. LIFE OF LIFE

What's that, which, ere I spake, was gone:
So joyful and intense a spark
That, whilst o'erhead the wonder shone,
The day, before but dull, grew dark?
I do not know; but this I know,
That, had the splendour lived a year,
The truth that I some heavenly show

Did see, could not be now more clear.
This know I too: might mortal breath
Express the passion then inspired,
Evil would die a natural death,

And nothing transient be desired;
And error from the soul would pass,
And leave the senses pure and strong
As sunbeams. But the best, alas,
Has neither memory nor tongue!

II. THE REVELATION

An idle poet, here and there,
Looks round him; but, for all the rest,
The world, unfathomably fair,

Is duller than a witling's jest.
Love wakes men, once a life-time each;
They lift their heavy lids and look;
And, lo, what one sweet page can teach,
They read with joy, then shut the book.