"For what care I, though all speak Sohrab’s fame? For would that I myself had such a son, And not that one slight helpless girl I have, A son so fam’d, so brave, to send to war, And I to tarry with the snow-hair’d Zal, My father, whom the robber Afghans vex, And clip his borders short, and drive his herds, And he has none to guard his weak old age."