A King in Thule. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Shetland Islands (Ultima Thule). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. 1876-79. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. Scotland: Vols. VI-VIII

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Shetland Islands (Ultima Thule)

A King in Thule

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)


Translated by Bayard Taylor THERE was a king in Thule,
Was faithful till the grave,—
To whom his mistress, dying,
A golden goblet gave.

Naught was to him more precious;	5
He drained it at every bout:
His eyes with tears ran over,
As oft as he drank thereout.

When came his time of dying,
The towns in his land he told,	10
Naught else to his heir denying
Except the goblet of gold.

He sat at the royal banquet
With his knights of high degree,
In the lofty hall of his fathers	15
In the castle by the sea.

There stood the old carouser,
And drank the last life-glow;
And hurled the hallowed goblet
Into the tide below.	20

He saw it plunging and filling,
And sinking deep in the sea:
Then fell his eyelids forever,
And never more drank he!