Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day[201-26] When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, Thou and the other peers of a Kai Khosroo, Returning home over the salt blue sea, From laying thy dear master in his grave." 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 Flow'd with the stream;--all down his cold white side The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd, Like the soil'd tissue of white violets Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank, By children whom their nurses call with haste Indoors from the sun's eye; his head droop'd 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 open'd them, And fix'd them feebly on his father's face; Till now all strength was ebb'd, 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-rear'd By Jemshid in Persepolis, to bear His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side-- So in the sand lay Rustum by his son. And night came down over the solemn waste, And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, And darken'd all; and a cold fog, with night, Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose, As of a great assembly loosed, and fires Began to twinkle through the fog; for now Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal; The Persians took it on the open sands Southward, the Tartars by the river marge; 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 hush'd Chorasmian waste, Under the solitary moon;--he flow'd Right for the polar star, past Orgunje, Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin [Illustration: RUSTUM SORROWS OVER SOHRAB]