Tannhäuser

Out flames the miracle of life and love ! Out, out the lights ! Flame, flame, the rushing storm ! Darkness and death, and glory in my soul ! Swept, swept away are pope and cardinal, Palace and city ! There I lay beneath The golden roof of the eternal stars, Borne up on some irremeable sea That glowed with most internal brilliance ; Borne up, borne up by hands invisible Into a firmament of secret light Manifest, open, permeating me ! Then, then, I cried upon the mystic Word ! (That once begot in me the Venusberg) And lo ! that light was darkness —in the face Of That which gleamed above. And verily My life was borne on the dark stream of death Down whirling aeons, linked abysses, columns Built of essential time. And lo ! the light Shed from Her shoulders whom I dimly saw ; Crowned with twelve stars and horned as the moon ; Clothed with a sun to which the sun of earth Were tinsel ; and the moon was at Her feet — A moon whose brilliance breaks the sword of song Into a million fragments ; so transcends Music, that starlight-sandalled majesty ! Then—shall I contemplate the face of Her ? O Nature ! Self-begotten ! Spouse of God, 138