280 ARNOLD
NIGHT
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 Indoors from the sun's eye; his head dropped 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
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