SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY
"Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feet
Should first have rotted on their nimble joints,
Or ere they brought thy master to this field I" 740
But Sohrab look'd upon the horse, and said :—
"Is this, then, Ruksh! How often, in-past days,
My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed,
My terrible father's terrible horse! and said,
That I should one day find thy lord and thee. j^j
Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane!
O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I ;
For thou hast gone where I shall never go,
And snuff d the breezes of my father's home.
And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, 750
• And seen the River of Helmund, and the Lake
Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself
Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food,
Corn in a golden platter soak'd with wine, 754
And said: *O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!'—but I
Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face,
Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan,
Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream ;
But lodged among my father's foes, and seen
Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand, -60
Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste,
And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk
The desert rivers, Moorghab and Tejend,
Kohifc, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep,
The northern Sir; and this great Oxus stream, 765
The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die."
Then, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewail'd:—
"Oh, that its waves were flowing over me!
Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt
Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head!" 770
|Jut, with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied :—
250