and to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things

that God made and loveth.

"O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!-

"To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!

"Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,

Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:

A sadder and a wiser man,

He rose the morrow morn.

S. T. Coleridge.

SOHRAB AND RUSTUM

AN EPISODE

AND the first grey of morning fill'd the east,

And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.

But all the Tartar camp along the stream

Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep;
Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long

He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed;
But when the grey dawn stole into his tent,
He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword,
And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent,
And went abroad into the cold wet fog,

Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's tent.

Through the black Tartar tents he passed, which stood Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand

Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow

When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere;

Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand,

And to a hillock came, a little back

From the stream's brink-the spot where first a boat,
Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land.
The men of former times had crown'd the top
With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now
The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent,
A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread.
And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood
Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent,
And found the old man sleeping on his bed
Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms.
And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step
Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep;
And he rose quickly on one arm, and said:-

'Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn. Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?'

But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said:'Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I. The sun is not yet risen, and the foe Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee. For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son, In Samarcand, before the army march'd; And I will tell thee what my heart desires. Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan first I came among the Tartars and bore arms, I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown, At my boy's years, the courage of a man. This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on 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 well-fought 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 rumour of a common fight,

Where host meets host, and many names are sunk; But of a single combat fame speaks clear.'

He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said:'O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine!

Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs,
And share the battle's common chance with us
Who love thee, but must press for ever first,

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 'tis 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 abhorr'd 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
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 dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left
His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay;
And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat
He pass'd, 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, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul;
And rais'd the curtain of his tent, and call'd
His herald to his side, and went abroad.

The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog

From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands.
And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed
Into the open plain; so Haman bade—

Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled

The host, and still was in his lusty prime.

From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd;

As when some grey November morn the files,

In marching order spread, of long-necked cranes
Stream over Casbin and the southern slopes

Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries,

Or some frore Caspian reed-bed, southward bound
For the warm Persian sea-board-so they stream'd.
The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard,

First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears;
Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara come
And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares.
Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns of the south,
The Tukas, and the lances of Salore,

And those from Attruck and the Caspian sands;
Light men and on light steeds, who only drink
The acrid milk of camels, and their wells.
And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came
From far, and a more doubtful service own'd;
The Tartars of Ferghana, from the banks
Of the Jaxartes, men with scanty beards
And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes
Who roam o'er Kipchak and the northern waste,
Kalmucks and unkempt Kuzzacks, tribes who stray
Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes,
Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere;
These all filed out from camp into the plain.
And on the other side the Persians form'd;-
First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd,
The Ilyats of Khorassan; and behind,
The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot,
Marshall'd battalions bright in burnish'd steel.