The King of Thule

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Title:     The King of Thule
Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [More Titles by Goethe]

[This ballad is also introduced in Faust, where it is sung by Margaret.]

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.

1774.

-THE END-
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poem: The King of Thule

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