Something heave up, swan-white!
An arm and a shining neck they mark,
And it rows with unrelaxing might!
It is he! and aloft in his left hand holden,
He swings, recovered, the beaker golden!

With long deep breaths his path he ploughed,
Glad greeting the heavenly day;
Jubilant shouted the gazing crowd,
"He lives! he is free! he has burst his way!
Out of the grave, the whirlpool uproarious,
The hero hath rescued his life victorious!"

He comes; they surround him with shouts of glee;
At the king's feet he sinks on the sod,
And hands him the beaker upon his knee.
To his lovely daughter the king gives a nod:
She fills it brim-full of wine sparkling and raying;
And then to the monarch the youth turned, saying:

"Long live the king!--Ah, well doth he fare
Who breathes in this rosy light!
For frightful, yea, horrible is it down there;
And man ought not to tempt the heavenly Might,
Or long to see, with prying unwholesome,
What He graciously covers with darkness dolesome!

"It tore me down as on lightning's wing--
When a shaft in a rock outpours,
Wild-rushing against me, a torrent spring: