The King of Thule

OH! true was his heart while he breathed,
That King over Thule of old,
So she that adored him bequeathed

Him, dying, a beaker of gold.

At banquet and supper for years has

He brimmingly filled it up,
His eyes overflowing Avith tears as

He drank from that beaker-cup.

When Death came to wither his pleasures

He parcelled his cities wide,
His castles, his lands, and his treasures,

But the beaker he laid aside.

They drank the red wine from the chalice,
His barons and marshals brave;

The monarch sat in his rock-palace
Above the white fosnn of the wave.

And now, growing weaker and weaker
He quaffed his last Welcome to Death,

And hurled the golden beaker
Down into the flood beneath.

He saw it winking and sinking,

And drinking the foam so hoar;
The light from his eyes was shrinking,

Nor drop did he ever drink more.