Collected Works (Vol. I)

TANNHAUSER 247 HEINRICH. Envy? This day when he comes back to us! Why, we are Iucky tou! We thought you dead ! WOLFRAM. Begrudge you, no! But—wish our luck were yours? Yes! Come, Tannhiauser, there’s my hand on it! Luck, love, and loyalty—the triple toast ! FORESTERS. Tannhauser ! Luck, and love, and loyalty ! TANNHAUSER. I thank you, loving kinsmen and my friends. But see, I am impatient to be gone! (Zo the verderer.) Your horse-—that favour I shall not forget, Nor linger to repay. Good morrow then! Good sport all day ! LANDGRAVE. God speed thee, Tannhauser ! [#xit TANNHAUSER. Am I still dreaming? It was surely he. But such an one, compact of suffering, Ofjoy, of love, of pity, of despair; Half senseless, half too subtle for my sense. WOLFRAM. He has passed through some unimagined test, Or undergone some sorrow. Leave it so! I saw high grief upon him, and new love ! ~“ TLEINRICH. You are the poet! To your instinct then ! Here's to the insight given us by God! LANDGRAVE. Wolfram is right ; a truce to jest to-day, The dogs are loose. Ride forward, gentle- men! [Amid the winding of horns and cries of the huntsmen the company moves off. HEINRICH. They hate his very name! Dear Tannhiuser ! [ Axze. ACT IV. ‘* So, force is sorrow, and each sorrow, force: What then? since Swiftness gives the charioteer The palm, his hope be in the vivid horse Whose neck God clothed with thunder, not the steer Sluggish and safe! Remorse,. Despair: but ever mid the whirling fear, Let, through the tumult, break the poet’s face Radiant, assured his wild slaves win the race!" Yoke Hatred, Crime, Two Poets of Croiste, ScENE I. A room tn the palace of the LANDGRAVE. ELIZABETH. I am ashamed to look upon thy face! TANNHAUSER. O Love! Pure mystery of life! ELIZABETH. Not so. Learn how this came. My father would have made A match of lands and titles. I declined, Minded to keep my high virginity. Ife laughed, was cruel. So I said at last: ‘*Tannhauser only!” Was this modesty? Listen. You loved me when I was a child ; And, in my childish way, I looked to you, Loved sitting at your knee and toying with The great cross-hilt, or watching how the steel Outshone the jewelled scabbard when you drew (You would not Jet me touch) the delicate blade Half out: and also fingering your harp, Picking child’s tunes out, while you curled my hair Between two fingers, dreamily enough ! Then, too, you went away out of my life! You see the symbol you have been to me? The swift high mind, the heart of gold and fire,