Collected Works (Vol. I)

TANNHAUSER 234 The breathing life of thee, and swoons, and sighs, And dies ! None but the dead can know the worth of love! Come, love, thy bosom to my heart recalls Strange festivals and subtle funerals. Soft passion rises in the amber walls, And falls! None but the dead can breathe the life of love ! Come, love, thy lips, curved hollow as the moon’s! , Bring me thy kisses, for the seawind tunes, The song that soars, and reads the starry runes, And swoons ! None but the dead can tune the lyre of love! Come, love, thy body serpentine and bright ! What love is this, the heart of sombre light, Impossible, and therefore infinite? Sheer height ! None but the dead can twine the limbs of love ! Come, love! My body in thy passion weeps Tears keen as dewfall’s, salter than the deep’s. My bosom! leaps, And sleeps! None but the dead can sleep the sleep of love! How its fortress wakes, and 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! [TANNHAUSER Sleeps. VENUS. Sleep on, poor fool, and in thy sleep deceived Defy the very beauty that thou seekest ! Now is the solemn portal of the dusk Lifted ; and in the gleaming silver-gray, The eastern sky, steps out the single One, Hathoor and Aphrodite—whom I mock ! I may not follow in the dimness—I Chained unto matter by my evil will, Delight of death and carnal life. But see! He stirs, as one beholding in a dream Some deadly serpent or foul basilisk Sunning its scales, called kingly, in the mire. Strike, O my lover! I will drag thee down Into mine own unending pain and hate ‘To be one devil more upon the earth.— Come! ye my serpents, wrap his bosom round With your entangling leprosy! And me, Let me assume the belovéd limber shape, The crested head, the jewelled eyes of death, And sinuous sinewy glitter of serpenthood, That I may look once more into his face, And, kissing, kill him! Thus to hold him fast, Drawing his human spirit into mine For strength, for life, for poison! Ah, my God ! These pangs, these torments! See! the sleeper wakes ! Iam triumphant! For he reaches out The sleepy arms, and turns the drowsy head To catch the dew dissolving of my lip. Wake, lover, wake! Thy Venus waits for thee ! Draw back, look, hunger !—and thy mouth is mine ! TANNHAUSER. ‘©Once I will shew Me waking. Destiny ‘* Adds one illusion to thee. Yet, Oh child! ‘‘ Vet will I not forsake thee ; for thy soul, ‘Its splendid self, hath known Me. Fare thee well.” VENUS, What are these strange and silly words? Awake ! Wake and devour me with the dawn of love, The dragon to eclipse this moon of mine !