[Rustum, the champion of the Persians, fighting under a feigned name, unwittingly slays his son Sohrab, the champion of the Tartars.]

He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood

Speechless; and then he uttered one sharp cry: 'O boy-thy father!'-and his voice choked there.

And then a dark cloud passed before his eyes, And his head swam, and he sank down to earth.

But Sohrab crawled to where he lay, and cast His arms about his neck, and kissed his lips,

20

And his sobs choked him; and he clutched his sword,

To draw it, and for ever let life out.

But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, And with a soothing voice he spake, and said:

'Father, forbear! for I but meet to-day

The doom which 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 engaged

The strife, and hurled me on my father's spear. But let us speak no more of this! I find My father; let me feel that I have found! 30 Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks,

And wash them with thy tears, and say:
My son !

Quick! quick! for numbered are my sands of
life,

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 released the heart Of Rustum, and his tears broke forth; he cast 40 His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud,

And kissed him. And awe fell on both the hosts.

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 Indoors 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 night came down over the solemn waste,

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 moved, Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasinian

waste,

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Then come down!

She will not come though you call all day; Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.

She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well,

When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea;

She said: 'I must go, for my kinsfolk pray In the little grey church on the shore to-day. 'Twill be Easter-time in the world-ah me! And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee.'

I said: 'Go up, dear heart, through the

The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.'
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were sealed to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest: shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more.
Come away, come down, call no more!

Down, down, down!

Down to the depths of the sea!

She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.

Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,

For the humming street, and the child with its toy!

For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun,

And the blessed light of the sun!'
And so she sings her fill,

Singing most joyfully.

Till the shuttle falls from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh;

For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden,

And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away children;
Come children, come down!
The hoarse wind blows colder;
Lights shine in the town.
She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,

A pavement of pearl.

Singing: Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she!

And alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea.'

To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays!

Here came I often, often, in old days; Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then.

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here! But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick;

And with the country-folk acquaintance made

By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick:

Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first
assayed.

Ah me! this many a year
My pipe is lost, my shepherd's-holiday!

Needs must I lose them, needs with
heavy heart

Into the world and wave of men depart; But Thyrsis of his own will went away.

It irked him to be here, he could not rest!
He loved each simple joy the country yields,
He loved his mates; but yet he could not
keep,

For that a shadow lowered on the fields,

Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep!

Some life of men unblest

He knew, which made him droop, and filled his head.

He went; his piping took a troubled sound

Of storms that rage outside our happy ground;

He could not wait their passing, he is dead!

[So, some tempestuous morn in early June, When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er,

Before the roses and the longest dayWhen garden-walks and all the grassy floor With blossoms red and white of fallen May

And chestnut flowers are strewnSo have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees,

Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze:

The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go 1!

Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come

on,

Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,

Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet-William with his homely cottage smell,

And stocks in fragrant blow;

Into yon further field !-'Tis done; and see,

Backed by the sunset, which doth glorify The orange and pale violet evening-sky, Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree!] I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil, The white fog creeps from bush to bush about,

The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright,

And in the scattered farms the lights come

out.

I cannot reach the signal-tree, to-night,
Yet, happy omen, hail!

Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale
(For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids
keep

The morningless and unawakening sleep Under the flowery oleanders pale),

Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim,

These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,

That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him! To a boon southern country he is fled,

And now in happier air Wandering with the great Mother's train divine

(And purer or more subtle soul than thee,

I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see!)

Within a folding of the Apennine,

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here! 'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore, Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home.

Then through the great town's harsh, heartwearying roar,

Let in thy voice a whisper often come.
To chase fatigue and fear :

Why faintest thou? I wandered till I died. Roam on the light we sought is shining still.

Dost thou ask proof? our tree yet crowns the hill,

Our Scholar travels yet the loved hillside.