led,
  They three, in that long-distant summer-time—­ 625
  The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt
  And hound, and morn on those delightful hills
  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, 630
  Like some rich hyacinth, which by the scythe
  Of an unskilful gardener has been cut,
  Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed,
  And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,
  On the mown, dying grass;—­so Sohrab lay, 635
  Lovely in death, upon the common sand. 
  And Rustum gaz’d on him with grief, and said:—­

  “O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son
  Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have lov’d! 
  Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men 640
  Have told thee false;—­thou art not Rustum’s son. 
  For Rustum had no son:  one child he had—­
  But one—­a girl; who with her mother now
  Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us—­
  Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war.” 645

  But Sohrab answer’d him in wrath; for now
  The anguish of the deep-fix’d spear grew fierce,
  And he desired to draw forth the steel,
  And let the blood flow free, and so to die,
  But first he would convince his stubborn foe—­ 650
  And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:—­

[Sohrab discloses the mark by which he was to be known.  “O boy—­thy father!”]

  “Man, who art thou who dost deny my words? 
  Truth sits upon the lips of dying men,
  And Falsehood, while I liv’d, was far from mine. 
  I tell thee, prick’d upon this arm I bear 655
  That seal which Rustum to my mother gave,
  That she might prick it on the babe she bore.”

  He spoke:  and all the blood left Rustum’s cheeks;
  And his knees totter’d, and he smote his hand,
  Against his breast, his heavy mailed hand, 660
  That the hard iron corslet clank’d aloud;
  And to his heart he press’d the other hand,
  And in a hollow voice he spake, and said:—­

  “Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie. 
  If thou shew this, then art thou Rustum’s son.” 665

  Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loos’d
  His belt, and near the shoulder bar’d his arm,
  And shew’d a sign in faint vermilion points
  Prick’d:  as a cunning workman, in Pekin,
  Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase, 670
  An emperor’s gift—­at early morn he paints,
  And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp
  Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands:—­
  So delicately prick’d the sign appear’d[42]
  On Sohrab’s arm, the sign of Rustum’s seal. 675
  It was that griffin, which of old rear’d