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 Orgunje, 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 Pamcre 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.
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