--What forms are these coming
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flowered broom?
What sweet-breathing presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night's balmy prime?--
'Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, the Nine.
--The leader is fairest,
But all are divine.
They are lost in the hollows!
They stream up again!
What seeks on this mountain
The glorified train?--
They bathe on this mountain,
In the spring by the road;
Then on to Olympus,
Their endless abode.
--Whose praise do they mention?
Of what is it told?--
What will be for ever;
What was from of old.
First hymn they the Father
Of all things; and then,
The rest of immortals,
The action of men.
The day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm;
The night in her silence,
The stars in their calm.
_Arnold._
CVIII
THE DEATH OF SOHRAB
THE DUEL
He spoke, and Sohrab kindled at his taunts,
And he too drew his sword; at once they rushed
Together, as two eagles on one prey
Come rushing down together from the clouds,
One from the east, one from the west; their shields
Dashed with a clang together, and a din
Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters
Make often in the forest's heart at morn,
Of hewing axes, crashing trees--such blows
Rustum and Sohrab on each other hailed.
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