Home
Poems: My Own
Poems: By others
Poems: Classical
Poems: Multilingual
Music & Songs
Stories & Myths
Links to Poetry
About & FAQ
Terms of Use
Contact
Submissions

The Latest
 

~ Historical & Classical Poetry ~

The King of Thule        The King of Thule MIDI (14 kB)

In Thule lived a monarch,
Still faithful to the grave,
To whom his dying mistress
A golden goblet gave.

Beyond all price he deem'd it,
He quaff'd it at each feast;
And, when he drain'd that goblet,
His tears to flow ne'er ceas'd.

And when he felt death near him,
His cities o'er he told,
And to his heir left all things,
But not that cup of gold.

A regal banquet held he
In his ancestral ball,
In yonder sea-wash'd castle,
'Mongst his great nobles all.

There stood the aged reveller,
And drank his last life's-glow,
Then hurl'd the holy goblet
Into the flood below.

He saw it falling, filling,
And sinking 'neath the main,
His eyes then closed for ever,
He never drank again.

Original: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): "Der König von Thule" (1774).
Transl. from German: Edgar A. Bowring, 1853.
Melody: K. F. Zelter (1758-1832)