The Star in the West

108 THE STAR IN THE WEST O Nature ! Self -begotten ! Spouse of God , The Glory of thy Countenance unveiled ! Thy face , O mother ! Splendour of the Gods ! Behold ! amid the glory of her hair And light shed over from the crown thereof, Wonderful eyes less passionate than Peace That wept ! That wept ! O mystery of Love ! Clasping my hands upon the scarlet rose That flamed upon my bosom , the keen thorns Pierced me and slew ! My spirit was withdrawn Into Her godhead , and my soul made One With the Great Sorrow of the Universe, The Love of Isis ! Then I fell away Into some old mysterious abyss Rolling between the heights of starry space ; Flaming above , beyond the Tomb of Time , Blending the darkness into the profound Chasms of matter-so I fell away Through many strange eternities of Space , Limitless fields of Time .. Such is the ecstatic rapture of Tannhäuser , in which he loses all perception of earthly love in the intoxication of the divine : Were it not only that the selflessness That fills me now , forbids the personal , Casts out the individual , and weeps on For the united sorrow of all things .? And such is the divine love to which we all must attain , “ For the united sorrow of all things ." 1 Tannhäuser , vol . i, p . 261 . 2 Ibid .