Page:Persian Literature (1900), vol. 1.djvu/187

His mind, O supplicate his generous aid;
  A sovereign balm he has whose wondrous power,
  All wounds can heal, and fleeting life restore;[47]
  Swift from his tent the potent medicine bring."
  --But mark the malice of the brainless King!
  Hard as the flinty rock, he stern denies
  The healthful draught, and gloomy thus replies:
  "Can I forgive his foul and slanderous tongue?
  The sharp disdain on me contemptuous flung?
  Scorned 'midst my army by a shameless boy,
  Who sought my throne, my sceptre to destroy!
  Nothing but mischief from his heart can flow,
  Is it, then, wise to cherish such a foe?
  The fool who warms his enemy to life,
  Only prepares for scenes of future strife."

  Gúdarz, returning, told the hopeless tale--
  And thinking Rustem's presence might prevail;
  The Champion rose, but ere he reached the throne,
  Sohráb had breathed the last expiring groan.

  Now keener anguish rack'd the father's mind,
  Reft of his son, a murderer of his kind;
  His guilty sword distained with filial gore,
  He beat his burning breast, his hair he tore;
  The breathless corse before his shuddering view,
  A shower of ashes o'er his head he threw;
  "In my old age," he cried, "what have I done?
  Why have I slain my son, my innocent son!
  Why o'er his splendid dawning did I roll
  The clouds of death--and plunge my burthened soul
  In agony? My son! from heroes sprung;
  Better these hands were from my body wrung;
  And solitude and darkness, deep and drear,
  Fold me from sight than hated linger here.
  But when his mother hears, with horror wild,
  That I have shed the life-blood of her child,
  So nobly brave, so dearly loved, in vain,
  How can her heart that rending shock sustain?"

  Now on a bier the Persian warriors place
  The breathless Youth, and shade his pallid face;
  And turning from that fatal field away,
  Move towards the Champion's home in long array.
  Then Rustem, sick of martial pomp and show,
  Himself the spring of all this scene of woe,
  Doomed to the flames the pageantry he loved,
  Shield, spear, and mace, so oft in battle proved;
  Now lost to all, encompassed by despair;