To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee. Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son! What will that grief, what will that vengeance be? Oh, could I live till I that grief had seen! Yet him I pity not so much, but her, My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells With that old king, her father, who grows gray With age, and rules over the valiant Koords. Her most I pity, who no more will see Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp, With spoils and honor, when the war is done. But a dark rumor will be bruited up, From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear; And then will that defenseless woman learn That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more, But that in battle with a nameless foe, By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain." He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, Thinking of her he left, and his own death. He spoke; but Rustum listen'd, plunged in thought. Nor did he yet believe it was his son Who spoke, although he call'd back names he knew; For he had had sure tidings that the babe, Which was in Ader-baijan born to him, Had been a puny girl, no boy at all-- So that sad mother sent him word, for fear Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms. And so he deem'd that either Sohrab took, By a false boast, the style of Rustum's son; Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. So deem'd he: yet he listen'd, plunged in thought; And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore At the full moon; tears gather'd in his eyes; For he remember'd his own early youth, And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn, The shepherd from his mountain lodge descries A far, bright city, smitten by the sun, Through many rolling clouds--so Rustum saw His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom; And that old king, her father, who loved well His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child With joy; and all the pleasant life they led, They three, in that long-distant summer time-- The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt And hound, and morn on those delightful hills In Ader-baijan. And he saw that youth, Of age and looks to be his own dear son,[195-22] Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand, Like some rich hyacinth which by the scythe Of an unskillful gardener has been cut, Mowing the garden grassplots near its bed, And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, On the mown, dying grass--so Sohrab lay, Lovely in death, upon the common sand. And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said:-- "O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved! Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men Have told thee false--thou art not Rustum's son. For Rustum had no son; one child he had-- But one--a girl; who with her mother now Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us--