Herewith we venture to compare the same stanzas, in a boyish translation of our own, made when we had a vision of translating 'Faust':—
'There was a king in Thule, the ancient sea beside;
His love a goblet gave him upon the day she died.
'At festival and banquet he loved that cup of gold,
For many a dream it brought him of the sweet days of old.
'The aged king arises; a mighty draught drinks he,
Then hurls the golden-goblet away into the sea.'
Some of Mr. Taylor's expressions in the few lines we have cited are unpoetic, and some are unintelligible; for example, what is to be understood by the old king's drinking 'his last life-glow?' Rhyme is of course answerable for the barbarism.
Now let us take the first four lines of 'The Prologue in Heaven'—the song of Raphael, the Archangel. Thus Mr. Taylor:—