Oh God, Thy blinding
beauty,
and the hght
Shed from Thy shoulders, and the golden night
Of mingling
fire and stars and roses swart
In the long flame of hair that leaps athwart,
Live in each tingling gossamer !
Dread
eyes !
Each flings its arrow of sharp sacrifice.
Eating me up with poison
!
I am hurled
Far through
the vaporous confines of the world
With agony of sundering
sense, beholding
Thy mighty flower, blood-coloured
death,
unfolding
!
Lithe limbs and supple shoulders and lips curled,
Curled out to draw me to their monstrous world
!
Warm breasts that glow with light ephemeral
And move with passionate music to enthrall,
To charm,
to enchant,
to seal the entrancing breath.
I fall
!
Stop
!
Spare me
!—Slay 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.
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