d in the sea.

"I felt myself seized, with the quickness of thought
The whirlpool entomb'd me in body and limb,
And billow on billow tumultuously brought
It's cataracts o'er me; in vain did I swim,
For like a mere pebble with horrible sound
The force of the double stream twisted me round.

"But God in his mercy, for to him alone
In the moment of danger I ever have clung,
Did bear me towards a projection of stone:
I seized it in transport, and round it I hung,
The goblet lay too on a corally ledge,
Which jutted just over the cataract's edge.

"And then I look'd downward, and horribly deep,
And twinkling sheen in the darkness below,
And though to the hearing it ever might sleep,
Yet still the eye clouded with terror might know,
That serpents and creatures that made my blood cool,
Were swimming and splashing about in the pool.

"Ball'd up to a mass, in a moment uncoil'd,
They rose, and again disappear'd in the dark,
And down in the billows which over them boil'd
I saw a behemoth contend with a shark;
The sounds of their hideous duel awaken
The black-bellied whale, and the slumbering craken.

"Still, still did I linger forlorn, and oppress'd
With a feeling of terror that curdled my blood;
Ah think of a human and sensible breast
Enclosed with the hideous shapes of the flood;
Still, still did I linger, but far from the reach
Of those that I knew would await on the beach.

"Methought that a serpent towards me did creep,
And trailing behind him whole fathoms of length,
He open'd his jaws; and I dropp'd from the steep
Round which I had clung with expiring strength:
'Twas well that I did so, the stream bore me up,
And here is thy servant, and there is the cup."

He then was retiring, a look from the King
Detain'd him: "My hero, the cup is thine own,
'Tis richly thy meed, but I'll give thee this ring,
Beset with a diamond and chrysolite stone,
If again thou wilt dive, and discover to me
What's hid in the deepest abyss of the sea."

The daughter heard that with compassionate thought,
Quick, quick to the feet of the monarch she flew:
"O father, desist from this horrible sport,
He has done what no other would venture to do,
If the life of a creature thou fain must destroy,
Let a noble take place of this generous boy."

The monarch has taken the cup in his hand,
And tumbled it down in the bellowing sea:
"And if thou canst bring it again to the strand,
The first, and the best of my knights thou shalt be;
If tha