Tannhäuser
…d dead, The Mystery of Pain. I am the Mother, I the silent Sea, The Earth, its travail, its fertility. Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me- To Me! TCKKVULLAND8PRAS8.rRINTEES.BDISIBirROH.
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…d dead, The Mystery of Pain. I am the Mother, I the silent Sea, The Earth, its travail, its fertility. Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me- To Me! TCKKVULLAND8PRAS8.rRINTEES.BDISIBirROH.
And Darkness on the Deep of Time. Murmurous voices call and climb ; Faces, half-formed, arise ; and He Looked from the shadow of His throne, The curtain of Eternity ; He looked —and saw Himself alone, And on the sombre sea, the primal one, Faint faces, that might not abide ; Flicker, and are foredone. So were they caught within the spacious tide, The sleepy waters that encased the world. Monsters rose up, and turned themselves, and curled Into the deep again. The darkness brooded, and the bitter pain Of chaos twisted the vast limbs of time In h…
I am the mother ! I the speaking sea ! I am the earth and its fertility ! Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me— To me! Hathoor am I, and to my beauty drawn All glories of the Universe bow down, The blossom and the mountain and the dawn, Fruit's blush, and woman, our creation's crown. I am the priest, the sacrifice, the shrine, I am the love and life of the divine ! Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness are surely mine- Are mine ! Venus am I, the love and light of earth. The wealth of kisses, the delight of tears. The ba…
…r shone upon the surface of the sea. Time, and the Great One, and the Nameless Name, Held in their grip the child, Eternity. Silence and Darkness in their womb withheld That spiritual fire, and brooded still : Nature and Time, their soleness undispelled. Ever awaiting the eternal Will. And Law was unbegotten : uttermost Night Dwelt, inaccessible to sound and sight ; Shielded from Voice, impervious to Light. Then grew within the barren womb of this The Breath of the Eternal and the Vast, Softer than dawn, and closer than a kiss— And lo ! the cha…
Out flames the miracle of life and love ! Out, out the lights ! Flame, flame, the rushing storm ! Darkness and death, and glory in my soul ! Swept, swept away are pope and cardinal, Palace and city ! There I lay beneath The golden roof of the eternal stars, Borne up on some irremeable sea That glowed with most internal brilliance ; Borne up, borne up by hands invisible Into a firmament of secret light Manifest, open, permeating me ! Then, then, I cried upon the mystic Word ! (That once begot in me the Venusberg) And lo ! that light was darkness…
Voice of the thunder ! Light of the levin ! I worship and wonder, O maker of Heaven ! The night falls asunder ; The darkness is riven ! Light, O eternal ! Life, O diurnal ! Love, O withdrawn ! Heart of my May, spring Far to Thy dawn ! God of the dayspring ! Sun on the lawn ! Hail to Thy splendour, Holy, I cry ! Mary shall bend her Face from the sky. Subtle and tender— Then I can die ! Tannhauser. The simple love of life and gladness there ! Merely to be, and worship at the heart. How complex, the machinery of me ! Better ? I doubt it. Hark ! he…
Darkness and death and rapture. Sing to you ? What song? My tunes are played upon too oft. My first great cry of love inaudible Sapped me of music. Venus. Sing me that again ! Tannhauser. Who is this maiden rob6d for a bride, White shoulders and bright brows adorable, The flaming locks that clothe her, and abide. As God were bathing in the fire of Hell ? They change, they grow, they shake As sunlight on the lake : They hiss, they glisten on her bosom bare. O maiden, maiden queen ! The lightning flows between Thy mounting breasts, too magically …
… 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 ! 119
…ch the gate That guards the Adytum, fortifying Fate ! Mine was, by weariness of blood and brain, Mere bitter fruit of pain Sought in the darkness of an harlot's bed, To make me as one dead : To loose the girders of the soul, and gain Breathing and life for the Intelligible ; Find death, yet find it living. Deep as Hell I plunged the soul ; by all blind Heaven unbound The spirit, freed, pierced through the maze profound, And knew Itself, an eagle for a dove. So in one man the height and deep of love Joined, in two states alternate (even so Are l…
…ower ! Let all his houses be as caves and holes, Unto the Beast I give them. And their souls — Lift up the shadowy hand !— Confound with darkness them that understand ! For why ? Me, the Most High, It doth repent Me, having made mankind! Let her be known a little while, and then A little while a stranger. Dumb and blind, Deaf to the Light and Breath of Me be men ! She is become an harlot's bed, the home And dwelling of the fallen one ! Arise ! Ye heavens, ye lower serving skies ! Beneath My dome Serve ye the lofty ones. The Governors, Them shal…
Hide thee, sweet river ; welcome to the sea, Ocean of love that shall encompass thee ! Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me— To me ! \Tannh'duser perceives that he is in the palace of a Great Qtieen. Rise, rise, my knight ! My king ! My love, arise ! See the grave avenues of Paradise, The dewy larches bending at my breath, Portentous cedars prophesying death ! See the long vistas and the dancing sea, The measured motion of fecundity ! Bright winds set swaying the soft-sounding flowers (Here flowers have music) in my woven bo…
…the solemn purport of the dream With subtle shuddering of joy, —and that Keener delight, a sense of deadly fear ! This secret : Thou art darkness in Thyself, And evil wrapped in light, and ugliness Vested in beauty ! Therefore is my love No petty passion like these country-folk's : No fertile glory (as the Love of God) : But vast and barren as the winter sea, Holding I know not what enormous soul In its salt bitter bosom, underneath The iron waters and the serpent foam ; Below, where sight and sound are set no more, But only the intolerable wei…
…l 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. I knew in me That I must fall into the ground and die ; Dwell in the deep a-many years, at last To rise again—Osiris, slain and risen ! Light of the Cross, I see Thee in the sky, My future ! I must perish from the earth, Abide in desolate halls, until the hour When a new Christ must ne…
…resents Tannhauser in his true Self, —the "Only Being in an Abyss of Light!" The Tannhauser who talks is the " Only Being in an Abyss of Darkness," the natural man ignorant of his identity with the Supreme Being. The various other characters are all little parts of Tannhauser's own consciousness and not real persons at all : whether good or bad, all alike hinder and help (and there is not one whose function is not thus double) the realisa- tion of his true unity with all life. This circumstance serves to explain, though perhaps not to excuse, t…