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,
so delicate and frail,
Far, white, and lonely as the coldest star
Set beyond gaze of any eye but God's
;
And, to forget her, found due somnolence
In such
a warm brown bosom as thine own
54