The Two Adventurers and the Talisman

No flowery path to glory leads. / This truth no better voucher needs / Than Hercules, of mighty deeds. / Few demigods, the tomes of fable / Reveal to us as being able / Such weight of task-work to endure: / In history, I find still fewer. / One such, however, here behold -- / A knight by talisman made bold, / Within the regions of romance, / To seek adventures with the lance. / There rode a comrade at his ride, / And as they rode they both espied / This writing on a post: -- / "Wouldst see, sir valiant knight, / A thing whereof the sight / No errant yet can boast? / Thou hast this torrent but to ford, / And, lifting up, alone, / The elephant of stone / Upon its margin shored, / Upbear it to the mountain's brow, / Round which, aloft before thee now, / The misty chaplets wreathe -- / Not stopping once to breathe. " / One knight, whose nostrils bled, / Betokening courage fled, / Cried out, 'What if that current's sweep / Not only rapid be, but deep! / And grant it cross'd, -- pray, why encumber / One's arms with that unwieldy lumber, / An elephant of stone? / Perhaps the artist may have done / His work in such a way, that one / Might lug it twice its length; / But then to reach yon mountain top, / And that without a breathing stop, / Were surely past a mortal's strength -- / Unless, indeed, it be no bigger / Than some wee, pigmy, dwarfish figure, / Which one would head a cane withal; -- / And if to this the case should fall, / The adventurer's honour would be small! / This posting seems to me a trap, / Or riddle for some greenish chap; / I therefore leave the whole to you. ' / The doubtful reasoner onward hies. / With heart resolved, in spite of eyes, / The other boldly dashes through; / Nor depth of flood nor force / Can stop his onward course. / He finds the elephant of stone; / He lifts it all alone; / Without a breathing stop, / He bears it to the top / Of that steep mount, and seeth there / A high-wall'd city, great and fair. / Out-cried the elephant -- and hush'd; / But forth in arms the people rush'd. / A knight less bold had surely fled; / But he, so far from turning back, / His course right onward sped, / Resolved himself to make attack, / And die but with the bravest dead. / Amazed was he to hear that band / Proclaim him monarch of their land, / And welcome him, in place of one / Whose death had left a vacant throne! / In sooth, he lent a gracious ear, / Meanwhile expressing modest fear, / Lest such a load of royal care / Should be too great for him to bear. / And so, exactly, Sixtus[1] said, / When first the pope's tiara press'd his head; / (Though, is it such a grievous thing / To be a pope, or be a king? ) / But days were few before they read it, / That with but little truth he said it.

[1]: _Sixtus_. -- Pope Sixtus V., who simulated decrepitude to get elected to the Papal chair, and when elected threw off all disguise and ruled despotically.