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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=393384" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Driver</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">"What knight or what vassal will be so bold<br> As to plunge in the gulf below?<br>See! I hurl in its depths a goblet of gold,<br> Already the waters over it flow.<br>The man who can bring back the goblet to me,<br>May keep it henceforward,--his own it shall be."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus speaks the king, and he hurls from the height<br> Of the cliffs that, rugged and steep,<br>Hang over the boundless sea, with strong might,<br> The goblet afar, in the bellowing deep.<br>"And who'll be so daring,--I ask it once more,--<br>As to plunge in these billows that wildly roar?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the vassals and knights of high degree<br> Hear his words, but silent remain.<br>They cast their eyes on the raging sea,<br> And none will attempt the goblet to gain.<br>And a third time the question is asked by the king:<br>"Is there none that will dare in the gulf now to spring?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet all as before in silence stand,<br> When a page, with a modest pride,<br>Steps out of the timorous squirely band,<br> And his girdle and mantle soon throws aside,<br>And all the knights, and the ladies too,<br>The noble stripling with wonderment view.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when he draws nigh to the rocky brow,<br> And looks in the gulf so black,<br>The waters that she had swallowed but now,<br> The howling Charybdis is giving back;<br>And, with the distant thunder's dull sound.<br>From her gloomy womb they all-foaming rebound.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And it boils and it roars, and it hisses and seethes,<br> As when water and fire first blend;<br>To the sky spurts the foam in steam-laden wreaths,<br> And wave presses hard upon wave without end.<br>And the ocean will never exhausted be,<br>As if striving to bring forth another sea.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But at length the wild tumult seems pacified,<br> And blackly amid the white swell<br>A gaping chasm its jaws opens wide,<br> As if leading down to the depths of hell:<br>And the howling billows are seen by each eye<br>Down the whirling funnel all madly to fly.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then quickly, before the breakers rebound,<br> The stripling commends him to Heaven,<br>And--a scream of horror is heard around,--<br> And now by the whirlpool away he is driven,<br>And secretly over the swimmer brave<br>Close the jaws, and he vanishes 'neath the dark wave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O'er the watery gulf dread silence now lies,<br> But the deep sends up a dull yell,<br>And from mouth to mouth thus trembling it flies:<br> "Courageous stripling, oh, fare thee well!"<br>And duller and duller the howls recommence,<br>While they pause in anxious and fearful suspense.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"If even thy crown in the gulf thou shouldst fling,<br> And shouldst say, 'He who brings it to me<br>Shall wear it henceforward, and be the king,'<br> Thou couldst tempt me not e'en with that precious foe;<br>What under the howling deep is concealed<br>To no happy living soul is revealed!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Full many a ship, by the whirlpool held fast,<br> Shoots straightway beneath the mad wave,<br>And, dashed to pieces, the hull and the mast<br> Emerge from the all-devouring grave,--<br>And the roaring approaches still nearer and nearer,<br>Like the howl of the tempest, still clearer and clearer.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And it boils and it roars, and it hisses and seethes,<br> As when water and fire first blend;<br>To the sky spurts the foam in steam-laden wreaths,<br> And wave passes hard upon wave without end.<br>And, with the distant thunder's dull sound,<br>From the ocean-womb they all-bellowing bound.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And lo! from the darkly flowing tide<br>Comes a vision white as a swan,<br>And an arm and a glistening neck are descried,<br>With might and with active zeal steering on;<br>And 'tis he, and behold! his left hand on high<br>Waves the goblet, while beaming with joy is his eye.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then breathes he deeply, then breathes he long,<br>And blesses the light of the day;<br>While gladly exclaim to each other the throng:<br>"He lives! he is here! he is not the sea's prey!<br>From the tomb, from the eddying waters' control,<br>The brave one has rescued his living soul!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And he comes, and they joyously round him stand;<br> At the feet of the monarch he falls,--<br>The goblet he, kneeling, puts in his hand,<br> And the king to his beauteous daughter calls,<br>Who fills it with sparkling wine to the brim;<br>The youth turns to the monarch, and speaks thus to him:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Long life to the king! Let all those be glad<br> Who breathe in the light of the sky!<br>For below all is fearful, of moment sad;<br> Let not man to tempt the immortals e'er try,<br>Let him never desire the thing to see<br>That with terror and night they veil graciously."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"I was torn below with the speed of light,<br> When out of a cavern of rock<br>Rushed towards me a spring with furious might;<br> I was seized by the twofold torrent's wild shock,<br>And like a top, with a whirl and a bound,<br>Despite all resistance, was whirled around."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Then God pointed out,--for to Him I cried<br> In that terrible moment of need,--<br>A craggy reef in the gulf's dark side;<br> I seized it in haste, and from death was then freed.<br>And there, on sharp corals, was hanging the cup,--<br>The fathomless pit had else swallowed it up."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"For under me lay it, still mountain-deep,<br> In a darkness of purple-tinged dye,<br>And though to the ear all might seem then asleep<br> With shuddering awe 'twas seen by the eye<br>How the salamanders' and dragons' dread forms<br>Filled those terrible jaws of hell with their swarms."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"There crowded, in union fearful and black,<br> In a horrible mass entwined,<br>The rock-fish, the ray with the thorny back,<br> And the hammer-fish's misshapen kind,<br>And the shark, the hyena dread of the sea,<br>With his angry teeth, grinned fiercely on me."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"There hung I, by fulness of terror possessed,<br> Where all human aid was unknown,<br>Amongst phantoms, the only sensitive breast,<br> In that fearful solitude all alone,<br>Where the voice of mankind could not reach to mine ear,<br>'Mid the monsters foul of that wilderness drear."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Thus shuddering methought--when a something crawled near,<br> And a hundred limbs it out-flung,<br>And at me it snapped;--in my mortal fear,<br> I left hold of the coral to which I had clung;<br>Then the whirlpool seized on me with maddened roar,<br>Yet 'twas well, for it brought me to light once more."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The story in wonderment hears the king,<br> And he says, "The cup is thine own,<br>And I purpose also to give thee this ring,<br> Adorned with a costly, a priceless stone,<br>If thou'lt try once again, and bring word to me<br>What thou saw'st in the nethermost depths of the sea."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His daughter hears this with emotions soft,<br> And with flattering accent prays she:<br>"That fearful sport, father, attempt not too oft!<br> What none other would dare, he hath ventured for thee;<br>If thy heart's wild longings thou canst not tame,<br>Let the knights, if they can, put the squire to shame."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The king then seizes the goblet in haste,<br> In the gulf he hurls it with might:<br>"When the goblet once more in my hands thou hast placed,<br> Thou shalt rank at my court as the noblest knight,<br>And her as a bride thou shalt clasp e'en to-day,<br>Who for thee with tender compassion doth pray."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then a force, as from Heaven, descends on him there,<br> And lightning gleams in his eye,<br>And blushes he sees on her features so fair,<br> And he sees her turn pale, and swooning lie;<br>Then eager the precious guerdon to win,<br>For life or for death, lo! he plunges him in!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The breakers they hear, and the breakers return,<br> Proclaimed by a thundering sound;<br>They bend o'er the gulf with glances that yearn,<br> And the waters are pouring in fast around;<br>Though upwards and downwards they rush and they rave,<br>The youth is brought back by no kindly wave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Friedrich+Schiller">Friedrich Schiller</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=393384" data-title="The Driver de Friedrich Schiller" data-description=""What knight or what vassal will be so bold As to plunge in the gulf below? See! I hurl in its depths a goblet of gold, Already the waters over it flow. The man who can bring back the goblet to me, May keep it henceforward,--his own it shal..."></div> </div> </div>
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