His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child

With joy; and all the pleasant life they led,

They three, in that long-distant summertime

The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt And hound, and morn on those delightful hills 630

In Ader-baijan. And he saw that youth,
Of age and looks to be his own dear son,
Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand,
Like some rich hyacinth which by the
scythe

Of an unskilful gardener has been cut, 635 Mowing the garden grass-plots 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:

640 "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 Rus

And in a hollow voice he spake, and said:"Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie!

If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son."

Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed

His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm,

670 And showed a sign in faint vermilion points Pricked; as a cunning workman, in Pekin, Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase,

An emperor's gift-at early morn he paints, And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp 675

Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands

So delicately pricked the sign appeared On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal.

It was that griffin, which of old reared Zal, Rustum's great father, whom they left to die,

680

Surely my heart cried out that it was thou, When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke

too,

I know it! but fate trod those promptings

down

Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged The strife, and hurled me on my father's spear. 715

Quick! quick! for numbered are my sands of life,

And swift; for like the lightning to this field

I came, and like the wind I go awaySudden, and swift, and like a passing wind.

But it was writ in Heaven that this should be."

725 So said he and his voice released the heart

Of Rustum, and his tears broke forth; he cast

His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud,

And kissed him. And awe fell on both the hosts

When they saw Rustum's grief: and Ruksh, the horse,

730

And say 'O son, I weep thee not too sore,