And the first grey of morning fill’d the east,
  And the fog rose out of the Oxus[1] stream. 
  But all the Tartar[2] camp along the stream
  Was hush’d, and still the men were plunged in sleep: 
  Sohrab alone, he slept not:  all night long 5
  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, 10
  Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa’s[3] tent.

  Through the black Tartar tents he pass’d, 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:[4] 15
  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 20
  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-pil’d carpets in the tent, 25
  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:—­ 30

[Peran-Wisa wakes and asks the reason of his coming.  Sohrab proposes to settle the battle by a duel with a champion selected by the Persians.  By this plan Rustum would hear of it, and father and son meet at last.]

  “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 35
  Sleep; but I sleep not, all night long I lie
  Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee. 
  For so did King Afrasiab[5] bid me seek
  Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son,
  In Samarcand,[6] before the army march’d, 40
  And I will tell thee what my heart desires. 
  Thou knowest if, since from Ader-baijan[7] first
  I came among the Tartars, and bore arms,
  I have still serv’d Afrasiab well, and shown,
  At my boy’s years, the courage of a man. 45
  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 hop’d