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Page 1 of 21902 · PDF PAGE 101
SCENE II. The Court assembled in the Great Hall. Landgrave enthroned, Elizabeth by his side. Facing them are the competing minstrels. Around, courtiers and fair ladies. Landgrave. Welcome all minstrels ! Let us celebrate In the old fashion, dear to Germany, My child's betrothal to this noble youth. Great lord, true knight, and honest gentleman, So long who journeyed on the holy quest Forgotten of these younger days, and now Come back among us to receive reward For those long sufferings ; in days of peace. In fruitful love, and marriage happines…
1902 · PDF PAGE 130
…ate consciousness, The reason and the mind ! This middle way Ancients called safe —that damns it instantly ! Without some danger nothing great is done ! Let me be God ! Or, failing of that task. Were it but by an unit, let me fall ! And, falling, be it from so great a height That I may reach some uttermost Abyss, Inhabit it and reign, most evil one Of all the Horrors there — and in that path Seem, even deluded, to approach once more Infinity. For all the limitless Hath no distinction —evil is no more, And good no more. Elizabeth. But God is abs…
1902 · PDF PAGE 131
…! Not good ! Not wise! Not anything at all That heart can grasp, or reason frame, or soul Shadow the sense of ! Elizabeth. He is far too great ! I see ! Tannhauser. Not great ! The consciousness of man Their many generations moulded so To fix in definite ideas, and clothe Their Maker in the rags. If skies are vast, So gems are tiny : who shall choose between ? Who reads the riddle of the Universe ? All words ! Thus, from his rock-wrought peeking-poiiit Out speers the hermit. " See, the sun is dead ! " It shines elsewhere. You from your tiny per…
1902 · PDF PAGE 143
…s are buried in the mist of light. Beyond the hill the world is, and laments Existence —the wide firmament of woe ! And he—his heart was great enough for all, The fall of sparrows as the crash of stars, The tears of lonely forests, and the pain Of the least atom —all were in his heart. Was that indeed the truth ? that he should come At last a Christ upon the waiting world. Redeem it to more purpose than the last ! So fills his sorrow, and Her sympathy, My common soul, that I am fain to fall Upon my face, and cry aloud to God : " O Thou, Sole Wi…
1902 · PDF PAGE 98
The great cross-hilt, or watching how the steel Outshone the jewelled scabbard when you drew (You would not let me touch) the delicate blade Half out : and also fingering your harp, Picking child's tunes out, while you curled my hair Between two fingers, dreamily enough ! Then, too, you went away out of my life ! You see the symbol you have been to me ? The swift high mind, the heart of gold and fire. The living purpose and the mystic life Of lonely seeking for the Grail of God ! I—call you husband ? When I said your name, It was to set the tas…
1902 · PDF PAGE 134
…em light. [ Tannhauser rises, and silently departs. Oh God ! Oh God ! That I have loved him so ! Be merciful ! Be merciful ! to him, The great high soul, bound in the lofty sin ; To me, the little soul, the little sin ! 132
1902 · PDF PAGE 23
A lonely and desolate plain. Tannhduser riding towards a great nioutitain. Tannhauser. SI X days. Creation took no longer ! Yet I wander eastward, and no light is found. The stars their motion shirk, or else forget. The sun — the moon ? Imprisoned underground ! Where gnomes disport, and devils do abound. Six days. I journey to the black unknown, Always in hope the Infinite may rise Some unexpected instant, as 'twere grown A magic palace to enchanted eyes ; A wizard guerdon for a minstrel wise. Perhaps I am a fool to think that here, Merely by r…
1902 · PDF PAGE 52
…e with the dawn of love. The dragon to eclipse this moon of mine ! TannhAuser. I sleep not. Those were Her mysterious words As faded the great vision. And I knew In some forgotten corner of my brain Some desperate truth. Venus. Forget this foolishness ! [ There cometh a shadow. I am afraid, even I ! What moves me thus ? TannhAuser. I saw the mighty vision as before Forming in front of the awakening east, All permeated with the rose of dawn, And pale with delicate green light and shade, 50
1902 · PDF PAGE 137
… him, him unarmed, Not daring ! But he reached his hand to me ! " Good luck, old friend ! " and, smiling, he was gone. Gone to the Pope —Great soul to mountebank ! It was her wish, they whisper. Well-a-day ! He's gone, and not a friend have I again. This bank is soft with delicate white moss. No pillow better in broad Germany. Were Madeline but here ! What rustle stirs 135
1902 · PDF PAGE 60
Darkness and death and rapture. Sing to you ? What song? My tunes are played upon too oft. My first great cry of love inaudible Sapped me of music. Venus. Sing me that again ! Tannhauser. Who is this maiden rob6d for a bride, White shoulders and bright brows adorable, The flaming locks that clothe her, and abide. As God were bathing in the fire of Hell ? They change, they grow, they shake As sunlight on the lake : They hiss, they glisten on her bosom bare. O maiden, maiden queen ! The lightning flows between Thy mounting breasts, too magically …
1902 · PDF PAGE 120
…er bring No ultimation from the halls of night, The slippery staircase, and the Fatal Throne, The Evil House, the Fugitive of Light, The great Unluminous, the Formless One! Stoop not ! Beneath, a precipice is set. The Seven Steps. Stoop not, forget Never the splendid Image, and the realm Where lightnings overwhelm iiS
1902 · PDF PAGE 64
…ncarnate Beauty self-create! O Life ! O Death ! Love unimaginable ! Despair grows hope, as hope grows desperate ; And Heaven bridges the great gulf of Hell. Thy life is met with mine, Transmuted, grown divine. Even in this, the evil of the world ! What agony is this. The first undying kiss From jewelled eyes and lips in passion curled ? O sister and O serpent and O mate. Strike the red fang of hate Steady and strong, persistent to the heart ! So shall this song be made more terrible With the soul-mastering spell. Choke, stagger, know the Evil, …
1902 · PDF PAGE 109
…e. The seat of Heaven's archipelagoes ; Yet lighted not the glory virhence it came, Nor shone upon the surface of the sea. Time, and the Great One, and the Nameless Name, Held in their grip the child, Eternity. Silence and Darkness in their womb withheld That spiritual fire, and brooded still : Nature and Time, their soleness undispelled. Ever awaiting the eternal Will. And Law was unbegotten : uttermost Night Dwelt, inaccessible to sound and sight ; Shielded from Voice, impervious to Light. Then grew within the barren womb of this The Breath o…
1902 · PDF PAGE 29
…ay me ! [ Tannhduser enters into an ecstasy. This is death. [ The evil and averse Hathoor, or Vemcs, who hath arisen in the place of the Great Goddess, lifteth tip her voice and chanteth :— Venus. I sis am I, and from my life are fed All showers and suns, all moons that wax and wane, All stars and streams, the living and the dead. The mystery of pleasure and of pain. 27
1902 · PDF PAGE 31
… encompass thee ! Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me— To me ! \Tannh'duser perceives that he is in the palace of a Great Qtieen. Rise, rise, my knight ! My king ! My love, arise ! See the grave avenues of Paradise, The dewy larches bending at my breath, Portentous cedars prophesying death ! See the long vistas and the dancing sea, The measured motion of fecundity ! Bright winds set swaying the soft-sounding flowers (Here flowers have music) in my woven bowers, Where sweet birds blossom, and in chorus quire The rapt beginni…
1902 · PDF PAGE 139
…snows Barefoot, and through the lovely watered land Rich in the sunshine—even unto Rome. There knelt I with the other sinful folk At the great chair of Peter. Sobbed they out From full repentant hearts their menial sins, And got them peace. But 1 told brutally (Cynical phrase, contempt of self and him) My sojourn in the Venusberg ; then he Rose in his wrath, and shook the barren staff Over my head, and cried— I heard his voice Most like the dweller of the hurricane Calm, small, and still, directing desolation ; Death to the world athwart its pa…
1902 · PDF PAGE 141
… That flamed upon my bosom, the keen thorns Pierced me and slew! My spirit was withdrawn Into Her godhead, and my soul made One With the Great Sorrow of the Universe, The Love of I sis ! Then I fell away Into some old mysterious abyss Rolling between the heights of starry space ; Flaming above, beyond the Tomb of Time, Blending the darkness into the profound Chasms of matter—so I fell away Through many strange eternities of Space, Limitless fields of Time. I knew in me That I must fall into the ground and die ; Dwell in the deep a-many years, a…
1902 · PDF PAGE 14
…e have always, or nearly always, been on the earth those whom Councillor von Eckartshausen, the Svdmi Vivekdnanda and their like, call " great spiritual giants" (can there be any etymological link between "yogi" and " ogre " ?) and that such persons, themselves per- ceiving Truth, have tried to " diminish the message to the dog " for the benefit of less exalted minds, and hidden that Truth (which, unveiled, would but blind men with its glory) in a mass of symbology often perverted or grotesque, yet to the proper man transparent ; a " bait of fa…
1902 · PDF PAGE 18
…ankind. Such persons may find the reasoning of Tannhauser useful, if only to brace them to a more courageous attempt to understand the " Great Arcanum," and to attain at last, no matter at what cost, to "true Wisdom and perfect Happiness." So may all happen! Kandy, Ceylon, Sept. 1901. 16
1902 · PDF PAGE 17
…I give you all full permission to conclude your review of this book by quoting from Act III. " Forget this nightmare!" I must express my great sense of gratitude to Oscar Eckenstein, Gerald Kelly, and Allan MacGregor, who have severally helped me in the work of revision, which has extended over more than a year of time and nearly twenty thousand miles of space. Some few of the very best lines were partially or wholly suggested by themselves, and I have not scrupled to incorporate these : if the book be but a Book, the actual authorship seems to…