Page:Persian Literature (1900), vol. 1.djvu/189

Hung round the bier and wondering viewed the slain.
  "There gaze, and weep!" the sorrowing Father said,
  "For there, behold my glorious offspring dead!"
  The hoary Sire shrunk backward with surprise,
  And tears of blood o'erflowed his aged eyes;
  And now the Champion's rural palace gate
  Receives the funeral group in gloomy state;
  Rúdábeh loud bemoaned the Stripling's doom;
  Sweet flower, all drooping in the hour of bloom,
  His tender youth in distant bowers had past,
  Sheltered at home he felt no withering blast;
  In the soft prison of his mother's arms,
  Secure from danger and the world's alarms.
  O ruthless Fortune! flushed with generous pride,
  He sought his sire, and thus unhappy, died.

  Rustem again the sacred bier unclosed;
  Again Sohráb to public view exposed;
  Husbands, and wives, and warriors, old and young,
  Struck with amaze, around the body hung,
  With garments rent and loosely flowing hair;
  Their shrieks and clamours filled the echoing air;
  Frequent they cried: "Thus Sám the Champion slept!
  Thus sleeps Sohráb!" Again they groaned, and wept.

  Now o'er the corpse a yellow robe is spread,
  The aloes bier is closed upon the dead;
  And, to preserve the hapless hero's name,
  Fragrant and fresh, that his unblemished fame
  Might live and bloom through all succeeding days,
  A mound sepulchral on the spot they raise,
  Formed like a charger's hoof.

                                 In every ear
  The story has been told--and many a tear,
  Shed at the sad recital. Through Túrán,
  Afrásiyáb's wide realm, and Samengán,
  Deep sunk the tidings--nuptial bower, and bed,
  And all that promised happiness, had fled!

  But when Tahmíneh heard this tale of woe,
  Think how a mother bore the mortal blow!
  Distracted, wild, she sprang from place to place;
  With frenzied hands deformed her beauteous face;
  The musky locks her polished temples crowned.
  Furious she tore, and flung upon the ground;
  Starting, in agony of grief, she gazed--
  Her swimming eyes to Heaven imploring raised;
  And groaning cried: "Sole comfort of my life!
  Doomed the sad victim of unnatural strife,
  Where art thou now with dust and blood defiled?
  Thou darling boy, my lost, my murdered child!
  When thou wert gone--how, night and lingering day,
  Did thy fond mother watch the time away;