Collected Works (Vol. I)

TANNHAUSER 255 The awful grasping at the Infinite, Even as I grapple at the breasts of thee, The seeking and the striving to the light Deep in thine eyes, where Hell flames steadily ? I am not clinging thus Despairing to the body of thy sin For mere delight—Ah, deadly is to us The pleasure wrapping us, and holding in All love, all hate—the miserable way ! Dawns no devouring day Still on the infinite slow tune of limbs Moving in rapture ; sleepy echo swims In the dissolving brain, Love conquering lassitude at last to win Pain out of peace, and pleasure from a pang ; Then, scorpion-stung of its own terrible tang, Burnt of its own fire, soiled of its own stain, Falls conquered as a bird Bolt-stricken through the brain, To the resounding plain : The double word, The seesaw of all misery—begin The alluring mysteries of lust and sin ; Ends their delight !—and are they clear to sight ? Or mixed with death, compact of night ? Begin—the bitter tears of impotence, The sad permuted sense , Of this despair—what would you? and re- new The long soft warfare—the enchanted arms, , The silken body’s charms, The lips that murmur and the breasts that sting ; The eyes that sink so deep Beyond the steeps and avenues of sleep, And of their wonder bring No ultimation from the halls of night, The slippery staircase, and the Fatal Throne, The Evil House, the Fugitive of Light, The great Unluminous, the Formless One ! Stoop not! Beneath, a precipice is set, The Seven Steps. Stoop not, forget Never the Splendid Image, and the realm Where lightnings overwhelm The evil, and the barren, and the vile, In God’s undying smile ! Stoop not, O stoop not, to yon splendid’ world, Yon darkly-splendid, airless, void, inane, Blind confines in stupendous horror curled, The sleepless place of Terror and distress, Luring damned souls with lying loveliness, The Habitation and the House of Pain. For that is their abode, the Wretched Ones, Of all unhappiness the sons ! And when, invoking often, thou shalt see That formless Fire; when all the earth is shaken, The stars abide not, and the moon is gone, All Time crushed back into Eternity, The Universe by earthquake overtaken ; Light is not, and the thunders roll, The World is done : When in the darkness Chaos rolls again In the excited brain: Then, O then call not to thy view that visible Image of Nature ; fatal is her name ! It fitteth not thy body to behold That living light of Hell, The unluminous, dead flame, Until that body from the crucible Hath passed, pure gold! For, from the confines of material space, The twilight-moving place, The gates of matter, and the dark threshold, Before the faces of the Things that dwell In the Abodes of Night, Spring into sight Demons dog-faced, that show no mortal sign Of Truth, but desecrate the Light Divine, Seducing from the sacred mysteries. But, after all these Folk of Fear are driven | Before the avenging levin That rives the opening skiés, Behold that Formless and that Holy Flame That hath no name; That Fire that darts and flashes, writhes and creeps Snake-wise in royal robe, Wound round that vanished glory of the globe, Unto that sky beyond the starry deeps,