"Below, at the foot of that precipice drear, Spread the gloomy, and purple, and pathless obscure! A silence of horror that slept on the ear, That the eye more appalled might the horror endure! Salamander—snake—dragon—vast reptiles that dwell In the deep—coiled about the grim jaws of their hell!
"Dark-crawled—glided dark the unspeakable swarms, Like masses unshapen, made life hideously; Here clung and here bristled the fashionless forms, Here the Hammer-fish darkened the dark of the sea, And with teeth grinning white, and a menacing motion, Went the terrible Shark—the hyena of Ocean.
"There I hung, and the awe gathered icily o'er me, So far from the earth where man's help there was none! The one Human Thing, with the Goblins before me— Alone—in a loneness so ghastly—ALONE! Fathom-deep from man's eye in the speechless profound, With the death of the main and the monsters around.
"Methought, as I gazed through the darkness, that now A hundred-limbed creature caught sight of its prey, And darted.—O God! from the far-flaming bough Of the coral, I swept on the horrible way; And it seized me, the wave with its wrath and its roar, It seized me to save—King, the danger is o'er!"
On the youth gazed the monarch, and marvelled—quoth he, "Bold Diver, the goblet I promised is thine, And this ring will I give, a fresh guerdon to thee, Never jewels more precious shone up from the mine; If thou'll bring me fresh tidings, and venture again, To say what lies hid in the innermost main!"
Then outspake the daughter in tender emotion, "Ah! father, my father, what more can there rest? Enough of this sport with the pitiless ocean— He has served thee as none would, thyself hast confest. If nothing can slake thy wild thirst of desire, Be your knights not, at least, put to shame by the squire!"
The king seized the goblet—he swung it on high, And whirling, it fell in the roar of the tide; "But bring back that goblet again to my eye, And I'll hold thee the dearest that rides by my side, And thine arms shall embrace as thy bride, I decree, The maiden whose pity now pleadeth for thee."
In his heart, as he listened, there leapt the wild joy— And the hope and the love through his eyes spoke in fire, On that bloom, on that blush, gazed, delighted, the boy; The maiden she faints at the feet of her sire! Here the guerdon divine; there the danger beneath; He resolves!—To the strife with the life and the death!
They hear the loud surges sweep back in their swell; Their coming the thunder-sound heralds along! Fond eyes yet are tracking the spot where he fell— They come, the wild waters, in tumult and throng, Rearing up to the cliff—roaring back as before; But no wave ever brought the lost youth to the shore.
From the German of JOHANN C. F. SCHILLER.