The Diver (Bulwer-Lytton translation) Friedrich Schiller

"Oh, where is the knight or the squire so bold,
As to dive to the howling charybdis below?—
I cast into the whirlpool a goblet of gold,
And o’er it already the dark waters flow:
Whoever to me may the goblet bring,
Shall have for his guerdon that gift of his king."

He spoke, and the cup from the terrible steep,
That rugged and hoary, hung over the verge
Of the endless and measureless world of the deep,
Swirled into the maelstrom that maddened the surge.
"And where is the diver so stout to go—
I ask ye again—to the deep below?"

And the knights and the squires that gathered around,
Stood silent—and fixed on the ocean their eyes;
They looked on the dismal and savage profound,
And the peril chilled back every thought of the prize.
And thrice spoke the monarch—"The cup to win,
Is there never a wight who will venture in?"

And all as before heard in silence the king—
Till a youth, with an aspect unfearing but gentle,
'Mid the tremulous squires, stept out from the ring,
Unbuckling his girdle, and doffing his mantle;
And the murmuring crowd, as they parted asunder,
On the stately boy cast their looks of wonder.