Landgrave.
What are these words
?
The Unknown Minstrel.
Let silence
now abide :
Disturb not the impassioned utterance 1
Tannhauser.
[Smo-s.
Can you believe the deadly will's decree,
The bitter earnestness
of this desire,
The deep intention, the solemnity,
Profound
as night and penetrant as fire,
The awful grasping
at the Infinite,
Even as I grapple at the breasts of thee,
The seeking and the striving
to the light
Deep in thine eyes, where Hell tlames steadily?
I am not clinging thus
Despairing
to the body of thy sin
For mere delight —Ah, deadly is to us
The pleasure wrapping
us, and holding in
All love, all hate —the miserable way !
Dawns no devouring
day
Still on the infinite slow tune of limbs
Moving in rapture ; sleepy echo swims
In the dissolving
brain.
Love conquering lassitude at last to win
Pain out of peace,
and pleasure from a pang ;
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