Where leads this gentle love ?
I see you sigh !
The Scythe is laid unto the Golden
Grain
:
A note of utter unreality
Usurps the strain.
I sing not of that other flame of hell
Wrapping with torture the delighted brow —
But thou ! who knowest, and hast known,
so well,
Sing thou !
\Tannhduser,
e7ttranced, imagines himself
to be still in
Venusberg.
Tannhauser
{aside).
I have been dreaming that I left this place,
Escaped with life, wooed my Elizabeth
;
My dreams are always strange in Venusberg.
[ Taking his harp.
Sing thee again,
dear lady, of our joy
.•*
Listen,
then, listen
!
For some sombre finger.
Other
than
mine, impulses on the string.
This tune
I
knew not
!
See,
the strings are moved
Subtly
as
if
by witchcraft — or by God
!
[Sings.
In the Beginning
God began,
And saw the Night of Time begin
!
Chaos,
a
speck
;
and space,
a span
;
Ruinous
cycles fallen in,
o
105