From some high station he looks down,
At sunset, on a populous town;
Surveys each happy group which fleets,
Toil ended, through the shining streets,
Each with some errand of its own,
And does not say, I am alone.
He sees the gentle stir of birth
When morning purifies the earth;
He leans upon a gate, and sees
The pastures, and the quiet trees.
Low, woody hill, with gracious bound,
Folds the still valley almost round;
The cuckoo, loud on some high lawn,
Is answered from the depth of dawn;
In the hedge straggling to the stream,
Pale, dew-drenched, half-shut roses gleam.
But, where the farther side slopes down,
He sees the drowsy new-waked clown
In his white quaint-embroidered frock
Make, whistling, toward his mist-wreathed
flock,
Slowly, behind his heavy tread, The wet, flowered grass heaves up its head.
Leaned on his gate, he gazes: tears
Are in his eyes, and in his ears
The murmur of a thousand years.
Before him he sees life unroll,
A placid and continuous whole, -
That general life, which does not cease,
Whose secret is not joy, but peace;
That life, whose dumb wish is not missed
If birth proceeds, if things subsist;
The life of plants, and stoues, and rain,
The life he craves if not in vain
Fate gave, what chance shall not control,
His sad lucidity of soul.
Those gypsies - - so your thoughts I scan
Are less, the poet more, than man.
They feel not, though they move and see.
Deeper the poet feels; but he
Breathes, when he will, immortal air,
Where Orpheus and where Homer are.
In the day's life, whose iron round
Hems us all in, he is not bound;
He leaves his kind, o'erleaps their pen,
And flees the common life of men.
He escapes thence, but we abide.
Not deep the poet sees, but wide.
Judge vain beforehand human cares;
Whose natural insight can discern
What through experience others learn;
Who needs not love and power, to know
Love transient, power an unreal show;
Who treads at ease life's uncheered ways:
Him blame not, Fausta, rather praise!
Rather thyself for some aim pray,
Nobler than this, to fill the day;
Rather that heart, which burns in thee,
Ask, not to amuse, but to set free;
Be passionate hopes not ill resigned
For quiet, and a fearless mind.
And though fate grudge to thee and me
The poet's rapt security,
Yet they, believe me, who await
No gifts from chance, have conquered fate.
They, winning room to see and hear,
And to men's business not too near,
Through clouds of individual strife
Draw homeward to the general life.
Like leaves by suns not yet uncurled;
To the wise, foolish; to the world,
Weak: yet not weak, I might reply,
Not foolish, Fausta, in His eye,
To whom each moment in its race,
Crowd as we will its neutral space,
Is but a quiet watershed
Whence, equally, the seas of life and death
Enough, we live! and if a life
With large results so little rife,
Though bearable, seem hardly worth This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth; Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread,
The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world,
And beat the Persians back on every field, I seek one man, one man, and one alone, Rustum, my father; who I hoped should greet,
Should one day greet, upon some wellfought field,
His not unworthy, not inglorious son.
So I long hoped, but him I never find.
Come then, hear now, and grant me what I
ask.
Let the two armies rest to-day; but I
Will challenge forth the bravest Persian
lords
To meet me, man to man: if I prevail,
Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall-
Old man, the dead need no one, claim no
kin.
Dim is the rumor of a common fight, 60
In single fight incurring single risk,
To find a father thou hast never seen?
That were far best, my son, to stay with us
Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war,
And when 't is truce, then in Afrasiab's
towns.
But if this one desire indeed rules all,
To seek out Rustum — seek him not through
fight!
Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms,
O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son!
But far hence seek him, for he is not here.
For now it is not as when I was young,
When Rustum was in front of every fray:
But now he keeps apart, and sits at home,
In Seistan, with Zal, his father old;
Whether that his own mighty strength at
last
Feels the abhorred approaches of old age;
Or in some quarrel with the Persian king.
There go!-Thou wilt not? Yet my heart
forebodes
Danger or death awaits thee on this field. Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost
To us; fain therefore send thee hence in peace 89
To seek thy father, not seek single fights In vain. But who can keep the lion's cub From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son ?
Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires." So said he, and dropped Sohrab's hand, and left
His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay; And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat He passed, and tied his sandals on his feet, And threw a white cloak round him, and he took
In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword; And on his head he set his sheep-skin cap, Black, glossy, curled, the fleece of Kara-Kul;
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