And down he descends through the watery bed,
And the waves boom over his sinking head.

But though for a while they have ceased their swell,
They roar in the hollows beneath,

And from mouth to mouth goes round the farewell, "Brave-spirited youth, good night in death!" And louder and louder the roarings grow,

While with trembling all eyes are directed below.

Now, wert thou even, O monarch! to fling

Thy crown in the angry abyss,

And exclaim, "Who recovers the crown shall be king!” The guerdon were powerless to tempt me, I wis; For what in Charybdis's caverns dwells

No chronicle penned of mortal tells.

Full many a vessel beyond repeal

Lies low in that gulf to-day,

And the shattered masts and the drifting keel
Alone tell the tale of the swooper's prey.
But hark! with a noise like the howling of storms,
Again the wild water the surface deforms!

And it hisses and rages, it welters and boils,
As when water is spurted on fire,

And skyward the spray agonizingly toils,

And wave over wave beats higher and higher, While the foam, with a stunning and horrible sound, Breaks its white way through the waters around.

When lo! ere as yet the billowy war
Loud raging beneath is o'er,

An arm and a neck are distinguished afar,

And a swimmer is seen to make for the shore, And hardily buffeting surge and breaker, He springs upon land with the golden beaker.

And lengthened and deep is the breath he draws As he hails the bright face of the sun;

And a murmur goes round of delight and applause,

He lives! he is safe! -he has conquered and won! He has mastered Charybdis's perilous wave! He has rescued his life and his prize from the grave!

Now, bearing the booty triumphantly,

At the foot of the throne he falls,

And he proffers his trophy on bended knee;
And the King to his beautiful daughter calls,
Who fills with red wine the golden cup,
While the gallant stripling again stands up.

"All hail to the King! Rejoice, ye who breathe Wheresoever Earth's gales are driven!

For ghastly and drear is the region beneath;

And let man beware how he tempts high Heaven! Let him never essay to uncurtain to light What destiny shrouds in horror and night!

"The maelstrom dragged me down in its course; When, forth from the cleft of a rock,

A torrent outrushed with tremendous force,

And met me anew with deadening shock; And I felt my brain swim and my senses reel As the double-flood whirled me round like a wheel.

"But the God I had cried to answered me

When my destiny darkliest frowned,
And he showed me a reef of rocks in the sea,
Whereunto I clung, and there I found
On a coral jag the goblet of gold,

Which else to the lowermost crypt had rolled.

"And the gloom through measureless toises under Was all as a purple haze;

And though sound was none in these realms of wonder,
I shuddered when under my shrinking gaze
That wilderness lay developed where wander
The dragon and dog-fish and sea-salamander.

"And I saw the huge kraken and magnified snake And the thornback and ravening shark Their way through the dismal waters take,

While the hammer-fish wallowed below in the dark,
And the river-horse rose from his lair beneath,
And grinned through the grate of his spiky teeth.

"And there I hung, aghast and dismayed,
Among skeleton larvæ, the only
Soul conscious of life - despairing of aid

In that vastness untrodden and lonely.
Not a human voice, -- not an earthly sound,
But silence, and water, and monsters around.

"Soon one of these monsters approached me, and plied His hundred feelers to drag

Me down through the darkness; when, springing aside, I abandoned my hold of the coral crag,

And the maelstrom grasped me with arms of strength, And upwhirled and upbore me to daylight at length.”

Then spake to the Page the marvelling King,
"The golden cup is thine own,

But I promise thee further this jewelled ring
That beams with a priceless hyacinth-stone,
Shouldst thou dive once more and discover for me
The mysteries shrined in the cells of the sea.'

Now the King's fair daughter was touched and grieved,
And she fell at her father's feet,

"O father, enough what the youth has achieved! Expose not his life anew, I entreat!

If this your heart's longing you cannot well tame,
There are surely knights here who will rival his fame.”

But the King hurled downwards the golden cup,
And he spake, as it sank in the wave,
"Now, shouldst thou a second time bring it me up,
As my knight, and the bravest of all my brave,
Thou shalt sit at my nuptial banquet, and she
Who pleads for thee thus thy wedded shall be!"

Then the blood to the youth's hot temples rushes,
And his eyes on the maiden are cast,
And he sees her at first overspread with blushes,
And then growing pale and sinking aghast.
So, vowing to win so glorious a crown,
For Life or for Death he again plunges down.

The far-sounding din returns amain,

And the foam is alive as before,

And all eyes are bent downward. In vain, in vain,

The billows indeed re-dash and re-roar.

But while ages shall roll and those billows shall thunder, That youth shall sleep under!

Friedrich Schiller. Tr. J. C. Mangan.

Scylla, the Town.

DESTRUCTION OF SCYLLA IN 1783.

CALML

ALMLY the night came down
O'er Scylla's shattered walls;

How desolate that silent town!
How tenantless the halls

Where yesterday her thousands trode,
And princes graced their proud abode!

Low, on the wet sea-sand,
Humbled in anguish now,

The despot, midst his menial band,
Bent down his kingly brow,

Ay, prince and peasant knelt in prayer,
For grief had made them equal there.

Again! as at the morn,

The earthquake rolled its car;
Lowly the castle-towers were borne,

That mocked the storms of war.
The mountain reeled, its shivered brow
Went down among the waves below.