He spoke, and the cup from the terrible steep, That rugged and hoary, hung over the verge Of the endless and measureless world of the deep, Swirled into the maelstrom that maddened the surge. "And where is the diver so stout to go— I ask ye again—to the deep below?"
And the knights and the squires that gathered around, Stood silent—and fixed on the ocean their eyes; They looked on the dismal and savage profound, And the peril chilled back every thought of the prize. And thrice spoke the monarch—"The cup to win, Is there never a wight who will venture in?"
And all as before heard in silence the king— Till a youth, with an aspect unfearing but gentle, 'Mid the tremulous squires, stept out from the ring, Unbuckling his girdle, and doffing his mantle; And the murmuring crowd, as they parted asunder, On the stately boy cast their looks of wonder.
"Hark! a shriek from the crowd rang aloft from the shore, And behold: he is whirled in the grasp of the main." —Schiller.— From a photogravure after drawing by A. Michaelis.
As he strode to the marge of the summit, and gave One glance on the gulf of that merciless main; Lo! the wave that for ever devours the wave, Casts roaringly up the charybdis again; And, as with the swell of the far thunder-boom, Rushes foamingly forth from the heart of the gloom.
And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars, As when fire is with water commixed and contending; And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars, And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending. And it never will rest, nor from travail be free, Like a sea that is laboring the birth of a sea.
And at last there lay open the desolate realm! Through the breakers that whitened the waste of the swell, Dark—dark yawned a cleft in the midst of the whelm, The path to the heart of that fathomless hell. Round and round whirled the waves—deep and deeper still driven, Like a gorge thro' the mountainous main thunder-riven.
The youth gave his trust to his Maker! Before That path through the riven abyss closed again— Hark! a shriek from the crowd rang aloft from the shore, And, behold! he is whirled in the grasp of the main! And o'er him the breakers mysteriously rolled, And the giant-mouth closed on the swimmer so bold.