But still they were silent and pale as before,
Till a brave son of Eirin, in venturous pride,
Dash’d forth from the lancemen’s trembling corps
And canted his helm, cast his mantle aside,
While spearman, and noble, and lady, and knight,
Gazed on the bold stripling in breathless affright.
Unmoved by the thoughts of his horrible doom,
He mounted the cliff—and he paus’d on his leap,
For the waves which the pool had imbibed in its womb
Were spouted in thunder again from the deep,—
Yes! as they return’d, their report was as loud
As the peal when it bursts from the storm-riven cloud.
It roared, and it drizzled, it hiss’d and it whirl’d,
And it bubbled like water when mingled with flame,
And columns of foam to the heaven were hurl’d,
And billow on billow tumultuously came;
It seem’d that the womb of the ocean would bear
Sea over sea to the uppermost air.
It thundered again as the wave gathered slow,
And black from the drizzling foam as it fell,
The mouth of the fathomless tunnel below
Was seen like the pass to the regions of hell;
The waters roll round it, and gather and boom,
And then all at once disappear in the gloom.
And now ere the waves had returned from the deep,
The youth wiped the sweat-drops which hung on his brows,
And he plunged—and the cataracts over him sweep,
And a shout from his terrified comrades arose;
And then there succeeded a horrible pause
For the whirlpool had clos’d its mysterious jaws.
And stiller it grew on the watery waste,
In the womb of the ocean it bellow’d alone,
The knights said their Aves in terrified haste,
And crowded each pinnacle, jetty, and stone:
“The high-hearted stripling is whelm’d in the tide,
Ah! wail him,” was echoed from every side.
“If the monarch had buried his crown in the pool
And said: ‘He shall wear it who brings it again,’
I would not have been so insensate a fool
As to dive when all hope of returning were vain;
What heaven conceals in the gulfs of the deep,
Lies buried for ever, and there it must sleep.”
Full many a burden the whirlpool had borne,
And spouted it forth on the drizzling surge,
But nought but a mast that was splinter’d and torn,
Or the hull of a vessel was seen to emerge;
But wider and wider it opens its jaws,
And louder it gurgles, and louder it draws.
It drizzled, it thunder’d, it hiss’d and it whirl’d,
And it bubbled like water when mingled with flame,
And columns of foam to the heaven were hurl’d,
And flood upon flood from the deep tunnel came;
And then with a noise like the storm from the North,
The hellish eruption was vomited forth.
But, ah! what is that on the wave’s foamy brim,
Disgorged with an ocean of wreck and of wood?
’Tis the snow-white arm and the shoulder of him
Who daringly dived for the glittering meed:
’Tis he, ’tis the stripling so hardy and bold,
Who swings in his left hand the goblet of gold.