FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
15 matching pages
Page 1 of 11902 · PDF PAGE 50
…, love ! My body in thy passion weeps Tears keen as dewfall's, salter than the deep's. My bosom ! How its fortress wakes, and leaps, And sleeps ! None but the dead can sleep the sleep of love ! Come, love, caress me with endearing eyes ! Light the long rapture that nor fades nor flies ! Love laughs and lingers, frenzies, stabs, and sighs. And dies ! None but the dead can know the worth of love ! [ Tannhduser sleeps. Venus. Sleep on, poor fool, and in thy sleep forlorn Defy the very beauty that thou seekest ! Now is the solemn portal of the dusk…
1902 · PDF PAGE 47
Venus. Mere thunder on the mountain top. Do this, And I will come in sleep, in sleep renew The carnal joys of day. Tannhauser. Hast Thou forgot ? It is the fleshly I would flee ! Venus. Forget ? But I strive fleshwards. Let our sleep renew The endless struggle —and perhaps, for thee, For thee !—the veil may lift another fold. Tannhauser. Why dost Thou hate this vision ? Venus. She would take Thee from these arms ! Tannhauser. But she is beautiful With Thine own beauty : yet as if the God Cancelled its mortal comeliness, and came More intimate t…
1902 · PDF PAGE 46
…e her, she will slay thy soul ! Tannhauser. And is my soul not slain within me now ? Yet, I do hate her—in these waking hours. But in my sleep she grows upon the sense, A solitary lotus that pales forth In the wide seas of space and separateness. That radiance !—Amber-scented voice of light, Calling my name, ever, ever calling — Venus. Answer that call—and thou art lost indeed ! Wake thou thy spirit in this hateful sleep, Keeping the vision, rise, and spit on her ! Tannhauser. Spit on Thy likeness ? I who love Thee so ? Venus. Yes, yes : obey m…
1902 · PDF PAGE 44
Tannhauser. Ah, but the waking ! As I sink to sleep Pillowed in nuptial arms —so fresh and cool— (Yet in their veins I know the fire that runs Racing and maddening from the crown of flame, The monolithic core of mystical Red fury that is called a woman's heart) Sinking, I say, from the supreme embrace. The Good-night kisses ; sinking into sleep — What dreams betoken the dread solitude ? Venus. What dreams ? Ah, dreamest not of me, my knight ? Of vast caresses that include all worlds ? Of transmutation into molten steel Fusing with my intolerabl…
1902 · PDF PAGE 58
…atch the ripe red venom flow Slow on the hills of amber, staining them Its own warm purple. Look, the tender stream ! Venus. Let its old sleepy fragrance lull thee now. Yet madden thee in brain and sense and soul, Mixing success with infinite despair. So ; take our secret back to sleep with us :— And in that sleep I know that thou wilt choose The fact, and leave the dream, and so disdain These far-off splendours, catch the nearer joy. Take squalid kisses, banish crested love Intangible. Delights it thee, my friend. To reach the summits unattain…
1902 · PDF PAGE 45
…n the beginning : and grew suddenly A living soul at that caressing wind ! Venus. A living soul ! Tannhauser. So is Thy shade to me When sleep takes shape. 43
1902 · PDF PAGE 38
Their warm involving deep — Love, sleep !— And lover lies with lover On air's substantial steep. Tannhauser. Ah ! sweeter was September — The amber rain of leaves, The harvest to remember, The load of sunny sheaves. In gardens deeply scented, In orchards heavily hung, Love flung Away the days demented With lips that curled and clung. Ah ! Sweeter still October, When russet leaves go grey, And sombre loves and sober Make twilight of the day. Dark dreams and shadows tenser Throb through the vital scroll, Man's soul. Lift, shake the subtle censer …
1902 · PDF PAGE 70
…ace. Mere godhead could not bring That human lig^ht and livinar ! I will win. He must have banished Her—and dreams of me. Tannhauser {in sleep). Elizabeth ! Venus. His far-off baby-love ! I triunipli, then ! The Goddess hatli withdrawn. His mind works back to childhood, babydom, Will grow to manhood and remember me. Tannhauser {awaking, leaps to his feet). Freedom! Elizabeth! All hail to Her ! Radiant Goddess ! Liberty and love ! Venus. What sayest thou ? Curse Her ! Tannhauser. My Elizabeth! 68
1902 · PDF PAGE 52
…ese strange and silly words .■* Awake! Wake and devour me 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 56
Death and delusion—ay, corruption's self, Wickedness sliming into impotence. Pleasure in putrefaction. But, in sleep, I will put off that evil as a clout Cast by a beggar. Venus. And the sore is left. Tannhauser. Oh, but this body, very consciousness ! I banish both. I cross the crimson wall — My spirit shall reach up to and attain That other. Venus. So Persephone must hold Thy life divided in Her dark domain. Tannhauser. Already I have tasted once of this In its own lesser way. Ten years ago I loved a maiden called Elizabeth. A child she was, …
1902 · PDF PAGE 60
…nting breasts, too magically fair. Draw mc, O draw mc to a dreaming death ! Send out thine opiate breath, And lull me to the everlasting sleep. That, closing from the kisses of disdain To ecstasy of pain, I may sob out my life into their dangerous deep. 58
1902 · PDF PAGE 53
…er. I see— I see ! All blinded by the Light — Thou art the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Love ! Thou, Whom I sought through ages of deep sleep Forgotten when I died. There is no death : Change alternating ; and forgetfulness Of one state in the other—easy truth I could not understand ! Oh hear me, hear ! Spare me the last illusion !—She is gone ! 51
1902 · PDF PAGE 26
… eternity ! No more ! Let me ride on more hastily than this. That so my body may be tired of me. And fling me to the old forgetful kiss. Sleep's, when my mind goes, riderless and free. Into some corner of eternity. Alas ! that mind returns from its abode With newer problems, fiercer thoughts ! But stay ! Suppose it came not ? It must be with God !— Then this dull house of gold and iron and clay Is happy also— 'tis an easy way ! 24
1902 · PDF PAGE 55
…w thee. Aphrodite, no ! Nor Anael, nor Eva ! Rather thou Lilith, the woman-serpent, she who sucks The breath of little children in their sleep, Strangles young maidens, and presides upon Sterile debauchery and unnatural loves. Venus. Lilith ! Ah lover ! Thou hast known my name ! Tannhauser. So ; yet I love thee ! Rended is the veil ! Calling thee Ugliness, I guessed aright. Who saw, and see, all Beauty in thee still. Only, a beauty risen out of Hell ; 53
1902 · PDF PAGE 120
… The silken body's charms. The lips that murmur and the breasts that sting ; The eyes that sink so deep Beyond the steeps and avenues of sleep, And of their wonder 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