RUSTUM
Then with a heavy groan, Rustum bewailed: ‘O that its waves were flowing over me! O that I saw its grains of yellow silt Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head!’ But with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:— ‘Desire not that, my father! thou must live. For some are born to do great deeds, and live, As some are born to be obscured, and die. Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, And reap a second glory in thine age; Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine. But come! thou seest this great host of men Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these! Let me entreat for them; what have they done? They followed me, my hope, my fame, my star. Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace. But me thou must bear hence, not send with them, But carry me with thee to Seistan, And place me on a bed, and mourn for me, Thou, and the snow-haired Zal, and all thy friends. And thou must lay me in that lovely earth, And heap a stately mound above my bones, And plant a far-seen pillar over all. That so the passing horseman on the waste May see my tomb a great way off, and cry; Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies here, Whom his great father did in ignorance kill! And I be not forgotten in my grave.’ And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied: ‘Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son, So shall it be; for I will burn my tents, And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, And carry thee away to Seistan, And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends. And I will lay thee in that lovely earth, And heap a stately mound above thy bones, And plant a far-seen pillar over all, And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go! Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace! What should I do with slaying any more? For would that all whom I have ever slain Might be once more alive—my bitterest foes, And they who were called champions in their time, And through whose death I won that fame I have— And I were nothing but a common man, A poor, mean soldier, and without renown, So thou mightest live too, my son, my son! Or rather would that I, even I myself, Might now be lying on this bloody sand, Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine, Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou; And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan; And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine; And say: O Son, I weep thee not too sore, For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end! But now in blood and battles was my youth, And full of blood and battles is my age, And I shall never end this life of blood.’ Then at the point of death, Sohrab replied: ‘A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man! But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now, Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day, When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo Returning home over the salt blue sea, From laying thy dear master in his grave.’
NIGHT
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 Flowed with the stream;—all down his cold white side The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soiled, Like the soiled tissue of white violets Left, freshly gathered, on their native bank, By children whom their nurses call with haste Indoors from the sun's eye; his head dropped 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 opened them, And fixed them feebly on his father's face; Till now all strength was ebbed, 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-reared 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 darkened 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 hushed Chorasmian waste, Under the solitary moon;—he flowed Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè, Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many a league The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles— Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain cradle in Pamere A foiled circuitous wanderer—till at last The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.
Arnold.
[CIX]
FLEE FRO' THE PRESS
O born in days when wits were fresh and clear And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; Before this strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims, Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was rife— Fly hence, our contact fear! Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood! Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern From her false friend's approach in Hades turn, Wave us away and keep thy solitude!
Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade, With a free, onward impulse brushing through, By night, the silvered branches of the glade— Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue, On some mild pastoral slope Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales Freshen thy flowers as in former years With dew, or listen with enchanted ears, From the dark dingles, to the nightingales!
But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly! For strong the infection of our mental strife, Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest; And we should win thee from thy own fair life, Like us distracted, and like us unblest. Soon, soon thy cheer would die, Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy powers, And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made; And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.
Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles! As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea, Descried at sunrise an emerging prow Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily, The fringes of a southward-facing brow Among the Ægæan isles; And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine— And knew the intruders on his ancient home,
The young light-hearted masters of the waves— And snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail; And day and night held on indignantly O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale, Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, To where the Atlantic raves Outside the western straits; and unbent sails There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come; And on the beach undid his corded bales.
Arnold.
[CX]
SCHOOL FENCIBLES
We come in arms, we stand ten score, Embattled on the castle green; We grasp our firelocks tight, for war Is threatening, and we see our Queen. And ‘Will the churls last out till we Have duly hardened bones and thews For scouring leagues of swamp and sea Of braggart mobs and corsair crews?’ We ask; we fear not scoff or smile At meek attire of blue and grey, For the proud wrath that thrills our isle Gives faith and force to this array. So great a charm is England's right, That hearts enlarged together flow, And each man rises up a knight To work the evil-thinkers woe. And, girt with ancient truth and grace, We do our service and our suit, And each can be, whate'er his race, A Chandos or a Montacute. Thou, Mistress, whom we serve to-day, Bless the real swords that we shall wield, Repeat the call we now obey In sunset lands, on some fair field. Thy flag shall make some Huron rock As dear to us as Windsor's keep, And arms thy Thames hath nerved shall mock The surgings of th' Ontarian deep. The stately music of thy Guards, Which times our march beneath thy ken, Shall sound, with spells of sacred bards, From heart to heart, when we are men. And when we bleed on alien earth, We'll call to mind how cheers of ours Proclaimed a loud uncourtly mirth Amongst thy glowing orange bowers. And if for England's sake we fall, So be it, so thy cross be won, Fixed by kind hands on silvered pall, And worn in death, for duty done. Ah! thus we fondle Death, the soldier's mate, Blending his image with the hopes of youth To hallow all; meanwhile the hidden fate Chills not our fancies with the iron truth. Death from afar we call, and Death is here, To choose out him who wears the loftiest mien; And Grief, the cruel lord who knows no peer, Breaks through the shield of love to pierce our Queen.
Cory.
[CXI]
THE TWO CAPTAINS
When George the Third was reigning a hundred years ago, He ordered Captain Farmer to chase the foreign foe. ‘You're not afraid of shot,’ said he, ‘you're not afraid of wreck, So cruise about the west of France in the frigate called Quebec.
Quebec was once a Frenchman's town, but twenty years ago King George the Second sent a man called General Wolfe, you know, To clamber up a precipice and look into Quebec, As you'd look down a hatchway when standing on the deck.
If Wolfe could beat the Frenchmen then so you can beat them now. Before he got inside the town he died, I must allow. But since the town was won for us it is a lucky name, And you'll remember Wolfe's good work, and you shall do the same.’
Then Farmer said, ‘I'll try, sir,’ and Farmer bowed so low That George could see his pigtail tied in a velvet bow. George gave him his commission, and that it might be safer, Signed ‘King of Britain, King of France,’ and sealed it with a wafer.
Then proud was Captain Farmer in a frigate of his own, And grander on his quarter-deck than George upon the throne. He'd two guns in his cabin, and on the spar-deck ten, And twenty on the gun-deck, and more than ten score men.
And as a huntsman scours the brakes with sixteen brace of dogs, With two-and-thirty cannon the ship explored the fogs. From Cape la Hogue to Ushant, from Rochefort to Belleisle, She hunted game till reef and mud were rubbing on her keel.
The fogs are dried, the frigate's side is bright with melting tar, The lad up in the foretop sees square white sails afar; The east wind drives three square-sailed masts from out the Breton bay, And ‘Clear for action!’ Farmer shouts, and reefers yell ‘Hooray!’
The Frenchman's captain had a name I wish I could pronounce; A Breton gentleman was he, and wholly free from bounce, One like those famous fellows who died by guillotine For honour and the fleurs-de-lys and Antoinette the Queen.
The Catholic for Louis, the Protestant for George, Each captain drew as bright a sword as saintly smiths could forge; And both were simple seamen, but both could understand How each was bound to win or die for flag and native land.
The French ship was la Surveillante, which means the watchful maid; She folded up her head-dress and began to cannonade. Her hull was clean, and ours was foul; we had to spread more sail. On canvas, stays, and topsail yards her bullets came like hail.
Sore smitten were both captains, and many lads beside, And still to cut our rigging the foreign gunners tried. A sail-clad spar came flapping down athwart a blazing gun; We could not quench the rushing flames, and so the Frenchman won.
Our quarter-deck was crowded, the waist was all aglow; Men hung upon the taffrail half scorched, but loth to go; Our captain sat where once he stood, and would not quit his chair. He bade his comrades leap for life, and leave him bleeding there.
The guns were hushed on either side, the Frenchmen lowered boats, They flung us planks and hencoops, and everything that floats. They risked their lives, good fellows! to bring their rivals aid. 'Twas by the conflagration the peace was strangely made.
La Surveillante was like a sieve; the victors had no rest, They had to dodge the east wind to reach the port of Brest, And where the waves leapt lower, and the riddled ship went slower, In triumph, yet in funeral guise, came fisher-boats to tow her.
They dealt with us as brethren, they mourned for Farmer dead; And as the wounded captives passed each Breton bowed the head. Then spoke the French Lieutenant, ‘'Twas fire that won, not we. You never struck your flag to us; you'll go to England free.’
'Twas the sixth day of October, seventeen hundred seventy-nine, A year when nations ventured against us to combine, Quebec was burnt and Farmer slain, by us remembered not; But thanks be to the French book wherein they're not forgot.
Now you, if you've to fight the French, my youngster, bear in mind Those seamen of King Louis so chivalrous and kind; Think of the Breton gentlemen who took our lads to Brest, And treat some rescued Breton as a comrade and a guest.
Cory.
[CXII]
THE HEAD OF BRAN
When the head of Bran Was firm on British shoulders, God made a man! Cried all beholders.
Steel could not resist The weight his arm would rattle; He with naked fist Has brained a knight in battle.
He marched on the foe, And never counted numbers; Foreign widows know The hosts he sent to slumbers.
As a street you scan That's towered by the steeple, So the head of Bran Rose o'er his people.
‘Death's my neighbour,’ Quoth Bran the blest; ‘Christian labour Brings Christian rest. From the trunk sever The head of Bran, That which never Has bent to man!
That which never To men has bowed Shall live ever To shame the shroud: Shall live ever To face the foe; Sever it, sever, And with one blow.
Be it written, That all I wrought Was for Britain, In deed and thought: Be it written, That, while I die, “Glory to Britain!” Is my last cry.
“Glory to Britain!” Death echoes me round. Glory to Britain! The world shall resound. Glory to Britain! In ruin and fall, Glory to Britain! Is heard over all.’
Burn, Sun, down the sea! Bran lies low with thee.
Burst, Morn, from the main! Bran so shall rise again.
Blow, Wind, from the field! Bran's Head is the Briton's shield.
Beam, Star, in the west! Bright burns the Head of Bran the Blest.
Crimson-footed like the stork, From great ruts of slaughter, Warriors of the Golden Torque Cross the lifting water. Princes seven, enchaining hands, Bear the live Head homeward. Lo! it speaks, and still commands; Gazing far out foamward.
Fiery words of lightning sense Down the hollows thunder; Forest hostels know not whence Comes the speech, and wonder. City-castles, on the steep Where the faithful Severn House at midnight, hear in sleep Laughter under heaven.
Lilies, swimming on the mere, In the castle shadow, Under draw their heads, and Fear Walks the misty meadow; Tremble not, it is not Death Pledging dark espousal: 'Tis the Head of endless breath, Challenging carousal!
Brim the horn! a health is drunk, Now, that shall keep going: Life is but the pebble sunk, Deeds, the circle growing! Fill, and pledge the Head of Bran! While his lead they follow, Long shall heads in Britain plan Speech Death cannot swallow.
George Meredith.