Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TANNHAUSER; OR, THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS, by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: This is the land, the happy valleys these Last Line: The jostling tankards prodigal of wine. Alternate Author Name(s): Meredith, Owen; Lytton, 1st Earl Of; Lytton, Robert Subject(s): Tannhauser (1200-1270) | ||||||||
THIS is the Land, the happy valleys these, Broad breadths of plain, blue-veined by many a stream, Umbrageous hills, sweet glades, and forests fair, O'er which our good liege, Landgrave Herman, rules. This is Thuringia: younder, on the heights, Is Wartburg, seat of our dear lord's abode, Famous through Christendom for many a feat Of deftest knights, chief stars of chivalry, At tourney in its courts; nor more renowned For deeds of Prowess than exploits of Art, Achieved when, vocal in its Muses' hall, The minstrel-knights their glorious jousts renew, And for the laurel wage harmonious war. On this side spreads the Chase in wooded slopes And sweet acclivities; and, all beyond, The open flats lie fruitful to the sun Full many a league; till, dark against the sky, Bounding the limits of our lord's domain, The Hill of Horsel rears his horrid front. Woe to the man who wanders in the vast Of those unhallowed solitudes, if Sin, Quickening the lust of carnal appetite, Lurk secret in his heart: for all their caves Echo weird strains of magic, direful-sweet, That lap the wanton sense in blissful ease; While through the ear a reptile music creeps, And, blandly-busy, round about the soul Weaves its fell web of sounds. The unhappy wight Thus captive made in soft and silken bands Of tangled harmony, is led away -- Away adown the ever-darkening caves, Away from fairness and the face of God, Away into the mountain's mystic womb, To where, reclining on her impious couch All the fair length of her lascivious limbs, Languid in light from roseate tapers flung, Incensed with perfumes, tended on by fays, The lustful Queen, waiting damnation, holds Her bestial revels. The Queen of Beauty once, A goddess called and worshipped in the days When men their own infirmities adored, Deeming divine who in themselves summed up The full-blown passions of humanity. Large fame and lavish service had she then, Venus ycleped, of all the Olympian crew Least continent of Spirits and most fair. So reaped she honor of unwistful men, Roman, or Greek, or dwellers on the plains Of Egypt, or the isles to utmost Ind; Till came the crack of that tremendous Doom That sent the false gods shivering from their seats, Shattered the superstitious dome that bleared Heaven's face to man, and on the lurid world Let in effulgence of untainted light. As when, laid bare beneath the delver's toil On some huge bulk of buried masonry In hoar Assyria, suddenly revealed A chamber, gay with sculpture and the pomp Of pictured tracery on its glowing walls, No sooner breathes the wholesome heavenly air Than fast its colored bravery fades, and fall Its ruined statues, crumbled from their crypts, And all its gauds grow dark at sight of day; So darkened and to dusty ruin fell The fleeting glories of a Pagan faith, Bared to Truth's influences bland, and smit Blind by the splendors of the Bethlehem Dawn. Then from their shattered temple in the minds Of men, and from their long familiar homes, Their altars, fanes, and shrines, the sumptuous seats Of their mendacious oracles, out-slunk The wantons of Olympus. Forth they fled, Forth from Dodona, Delos, and the depths Of wooded Ida; from Athenae forth, Cithaeron, Paphos, Thebes, and all their groves Of oak or poplar, dismally to roam About the new-baptized earth; exiled, Bearing the curse, yet suffered for a space, By Heaven's clear sapience and inscrutable ken, To range the wide world, and assay their powers To unregenerate redeemed mankind: If haply they by shadows and by shows, Phantasmagoria, and illusions wrought Of sight or sound by sorcery, may draw Unwary men, or weak, into the nets Of Satan their great Captain. She renowned "The fairest," fleeing from her Cyprian isle, Swept to the northwards many a league, and lodged At length on Horsel, into whose dark womb She crept confounded. Thither soon she drew Lewd Spirits to herself, and there a bides, Holding her devilish orgies; and has power With siren voices crafty to compel Into her wanton home unhappy men Whose souls to sin are prone. The pure at heart Nathless may roam about her pestilent hill Untainted, proof against perfidious sounds Within whose ears an angel ever sings Good tidings of great joy. Nor even they, Whose hearts are gross, and who inflamed with lust Enter, entrapped by sorceries, to her cave, Are damned beyond redemption. For a while, Slaves of their bodies, in the sloughs of Sin, They roll contented, wallowing in the arms Of their libidinous goddess. But, erelong, Comes loathing of the sensual air they breathe, Loathing of light unhallowed, sickening sense Of surfeited enjoyment; and their lips, Spurning the reeky pasture, yearn for draughts Of rock-rebounding rills, their eyes for sight Of Heaven, their limbs for lengths of dewy grass: What time sharp Conscience pricks them, and awake Starts the requickened soul with all her powers, And breaks, if so she will, the murderous spell, Calling on God. God to her rescue sends Voiced seraphims that lead the sinner forth From darkness unto day, from foul embrace Of that bloat Queen into the mother-lap Of earth, and the caressent airs of Heaven; Where he, by strong persistency of prayer, By painful pilgrimage, by lengths of fast That tame the rebel flesh, by many a night Of vigil, days of deep repentant tears, May cleanse his soul of her adulterate stains, May from his sin-incrusted spirit shake The leprous scales, -- and, purely at the feet Of his Redemption falling, may arise Of Christ accepted. Whoso doubts the truth, Doubting how deep divine Compassion is, Lend to my tale a willing ear, and learn. Full twenty summers have fled o'er the land, A score of winters on our Landgrave's head Have showered their snowy honors, since the days When in his court no nobler knight was known, And in his halls no happier bard was heard, Than bright Tannhauser. Warrior, minstrel, he Throve for a while within the general eye, As some king-cedar, in Crusader tales, The stateliest growth of Lebanonian groves: For now I sing him in his matchless prime, Not, as in latter days, defaced and marred By secret sin, and like the wasted torch Found in the dank grass at the ghastly dawn, After a witches' revel. He was a man In whom prompt Nature, as in those soft climes Where life is indolently opulent, Blossomed unbid to graces barely won From tedious culture, where less kindly stars Cold influence keep; and trothful men, who once Looked in his lordly, luminous eyes, and scanned His sinewous frame, compact of pliant power, Aver he was the fairest-favored knight That ever, in the light of ladies' looks, Made gay these goodly halls. Oh! deeper dole, That so august a Spirit, sphered so fair, Should from the starry sessions of his peers Decline, to quench so bright a brilliancy In Hell's sick spume. Ay me, the deeper dole! From yonder tower the wheeling lapwing loves Beyond all others, that o'ertops the pines, And from his one white, wistful window stares Into the sullen heart o' the land, -- erewhile The wandering woodman oft, at nightfall, heard A sad, wild strain of solitary song Float o'er the forest. Whoso heard it, paused Compassionately, crossed himself, and sighed, "Alas! poor Princess, to thy piteous moan Heaven send sweet peace!" Heaven heard, and now she lies Under the marble, 'mid the silent tombs, Calm with her kindred; as her soul above Rests with the saints of God. The brother's child Of our good lord the Landgrave was this maid, And here with him abode; for in the breach At Ascalon, her sire in Holy Land Had fallen, fighting for the Cross. These halls Sheltered her infancy, and here she grew Among the shaggy barons, like the pale, Mild-eyed, March-violet of the North, that blows Bleak under bergs of ice. Full fair she grew, And all men loved the rare Elizabeth; But she, of all men, loved one man the most, Tannhauser, minstrel, knight, the man in whom All mankind flowered. Fairer growth, indeed, Of knighthood never blossomed to the eye; But, furled beneath that florid surface, lurked A vice of nature, breeding death, not life; Such as where some rich Roman, to delight Luxurious days with labyrinthian walks Of rose and lily, marble fountains, forms Wanton of Grace or Nymph, and winding frieze With sculpture rough, hath decked the summer haunts Of his voluptuous villa, -- there, festooned With flowers, among the Graces and the Gods, The lurking fever glides. A dangerous skill, Caught from the custom of those troubadours That roam the wanton South, too near the homes Of the lost gods, had crept in careless use Among our northern bards; to play the thief Upon the poets of a pagan time, And steal, to purfle their embroidered lays, Voluptuous trappings of lascivious lore. Hence had Tannhauser, from of old, indulged In song too lavish license to mislead The sense among those fair but phantom forms That haunt the unhallowed past: wherefrom One Shape Forth of the cloudy circle gradual grew Distinct, in dissolute beauty. She of old, Who from the idle foam uprose, to reign In fancies all as idle, -- that fair fiend, Venus, whose temples are the veins in youth. Now more and ever more she mixed herself With all his moods, and whispered in his walks; Or through the misty minster, when he kneeled Meek on the flint, athwart the incense-smoke She stole on sleeping sunbeams, sprinkled sounds Of cymbals through the silver psalms, and marred His adoration: most of all, whene'er He sought to fan those fires of holy love That, sleeping oftenest, sometimes leapt to flame, Kindled by kindred passion in the eyes Of sweet Elizabeth, round him rose and rolled That miserable magic; and, at times, It drove him forth to wander in the waste And desert places, there where prayerless man Is most within the power of prowling fiends. Time put his sickle in among the days. Outcropped the coming harvest; and there came An evening with the Princess, when they twain Together ranged the terrace that o'erlaps The great south garden. All her simple hair A single sunbeam from the sleepy west O'erfloated; swam her soft blue eyes suffused With tender ruth, and her meek face was moved To one slow, serious smile, that stole to find Its resting-place on his. Then, while he looked On that pure loveliness, within himself He faintly felt a mystery like pure love: For through the arid hollows of a heart Sered by delirious dreams, the dewy sense Of innocent worship stole. The one great word That long had hovered in the silent mind Now on the lip half settled; for not yet Had love between them been a spoken sound For after speech to lean on; only here And there, where scattered pauses strewed their talk, Love seemed to o'erpoise the silence, like a star Seen through a tender trouble of light clouds. But, in that moment, some mysterious touch, A thought -- who knows? -- a memory -- something caught Perchance from flying fancies, taking form Among the sunset clouds, or scented gusts Of evening through the gorgeous glooms, shrunk up His better angel, and at once awaked The carnal creature sleeping in the flesh. Then died within his heart that word of life Unspoken, which, if spoken, might have saved The dreadful doom impending. So they twain Parted, and nothing said: she to her tower, There with meek wonder to renew the calm And customary labor of the loom; And he into the gradual-creeping dark Which now began to draw the rooks to roost Along the windless woods. His soul that eve Shook strangely if some flickering shadow stole Across the slopes where sunset, sleeping out The day's last dream, yet lingered low. Old songs Were sweet about his brain, old fancies fair O'erflowed with lurid life the lonely land: The twilight trooped with antic shapes, and swarmed Above him, and the deep mysterious woods With mystic music drew him to his doom. So rapt, with idle and with errant foot He wandered on to Horsel, and those glades Of melancholy fame, whose poisonous glooms, Decked with the gleaming hemlock, darkly fringe The Mount of Venus. There, a drowsy sense Of languor seized him; and he sat him down Among a litter of loose stones and blocks Of broken columns, overrun with weed, Remnants of heathen work that sometime propped A pagan temple. Suddenly, the moon, Slant from the shoulder of the monstrous hill, Swung o'er a sullen lake, and softly touched With light a shattered statue in the weed. He lifted up his eyes, and all at once, Bright in her baleful beauty, he beheld The goddess of his dreams. Beholding whom, Lost to his love, forgetful of his faith, And fevered by the stimulated sense Of reprobate desire, the madman cried: "Descend, Dame Venus, on my soul descend! Break up the marble sleep of those still brows Where beauty broods! Down all my senses swim, As yonder moon to yonder love-lit lake Swims down in glory!" Hell the horrid prayer Accorded with a curse. Scarce those wild words Were uttered, when like mist the marble moved, Flusht with false life. Deep in a sleepy cloud He seemed to sink beneath the sumptuous face Leaned o'er him, -- all the whiteness, all the warmth, And all the luxury of languid limbs, Where violet vein-streaks, lost in limpid lengths Of snowy surface, wander faint and fine; Whilst cymballed music, stolen from underneath, Creeps through a throbbing light that grows and glows From glare to greater glare, until it gluts And gulfs him in. And from that hour, in court, And chase, and tilted tourney, many a month, From mass in holy church, and mirth in hall, From all the fair assemblage of his peers, And all the feudatory festivals, Men missed Tannhauser. At the first, as when From some great oak his goodliest branch is lopped, The little noisy birds, that built about The foliage, gather in the gap with shrill And querulous curiosity; even so, From all the twittering tongues that thronged the court Rose general hubbub of astonishment, And vext surmise about the absent man: Why absent? whither wandered? on what quest Of errant prowess? -- for, as yet, none knew His miserable fall. But time wore on, The wonder wore away; round absence crept The weed of custom, and the absent one Became at last a memory, and no more. One heart within that memory lived aloof; One face, remembering his, forgot to smile; Our Landgrave's niece the old familiar ways Walked like a ghost with unfamiliar looks. Time put his sickle in among the days. The rose burned out; red Autumn lit the woods; The last snows, melting, changed to snowy clouds; And Spring once more with incantations came To wake the buried year. Then did our liege, Lord Landgrave Herman, -- for he loved his niece, And lightly from her simple heart had won The secret of lost smiles, and why she drooped, A wilted flower, -- thinking to dispel, If that might be, her mournfulness, let cry By heralds that, at coming Whitsuntide, The minstrel-knights in Wartburg should convene To hold high combat in the craft of song, And sing before the Princess for the prize. But, ere that time, it fell upon a day When our good lord went forth to hunt the hart, That he with certain of his court, 'mid whom Was Wolfram, -- once Tannhauser's friend, himself Among the minstrels held in high renown, -- Came down the Wartburg valley, where they deemed To hold the hart at siege, and found him not: But found, far down, at bottom of the glade, Beneath a broken cross, a lonely knight Who sat on a great stone, watching the clouds. And Wolfram, being a little in the van Of all his fellows, eager for the hunt, Hurriedly ran to question of the knight If he had viewed the hart. But when he came To parley with him, suddenly he gave A shout of great good cheer; for, all at once, In that same knight he saw, and knew, though changed, Tannhauser, his old friend and fellow-bard. Now, Wolfram long had loved Elizabeth As one should love a star in heaven, who knows The distance of it, and the reachlessness. But when he knew Tannhauser in her heart (For loving eyes, in eyes beloved are swift To search out secrets) not the less his own Clave unto both; and, from that time, his love Lived like an orphan child in charity, Whose loss came early, and is gently borne, Too deep for tears, too constant for complaint. And, therefore, in the absence of his friend His inmost heart was heavy, when he saw The shadow of that absence in the face He loved beyond all faces upon earth. So that when now he found that friend again Whom he had missed and mourned, right glad was he Both for his own and for the Princess' sake: And ran and fell upon Tannhauser's neck, And all for joy constrained him to his heart, Calling his fellows from the neighboring hills, Who, crowding, came, great hearts and open arms To welcome back their peer. The Landgrave then, When he perceived his well-beloved knight, Was passing glad, and would have questioned him Of his long absence. But the man himself Could answer nothing; staring with blank eyes From face to face, then up into the blue Bland heavens above; astonied, and like one Who, suddenly awaking out of sleep After sore sickness, knows his friends again, And would peruse their faces, but breaks off To list the frolic bleating of the lamb In far-off fields, and wonder at the world And all its strangeness. Then, while the glad knights Clung round him, wrung his hands, and dinned his ears With clattering query, our fair lord himself Unfolded how, upon the morrow morn, There should be holden festive in his halls High meeting of the minstrels of the land, To sing before the Princess for the prize: Whereto he bade him with, "O sir, be sure There lives a young voice that shall tax your wit To justify this absence from your friends. We trust, at least, that you have brought us back A score of giants' beards, or dragons' tails, To lay them at the feet of our fair niece. For think not, truant, that Elizabeth Will hold you lightly quitted." At that name, Elizabeth, he started as a man That hears on foreign shores, from alien lips, Some name familiar to his fatherland; And all at once the man's heart inly yearns For brooks that bubble, and for woods that wave Before his father's door, while he forgets The forms about him. So Tannhauser mused A little space, then faltered: "O my liege, Fares my good lady well? -- I pray my lord That I may draw me hence a little while, For all my mind is troubled: and, indeed, I know not if my harp have lost his skill, But, skilled, or skilless, it shall find some tone To render thanks to-morrow to my lord; To whose behests a bondsman, in so far As my poor service holds, I will assay To sing before the Princess for the prize." Then, on the morrow morn, from far and near Flowed in the feudatory lords. The hills Broke out ablaze with banners, and rung loud With tingling trumpet notes, and neighing steeds. For all the land, elate with lusty life, Buzzed like a beehive in the sun; and all The castle swarmed from bridge to barbican With mantle and with mail, whilst minster-bells Rang hoarse their happy chimes, till the high noon Clanged from the towers. Then, o'er the platform stoled And canopied in crimson, lightly blew The sceptred heralds on the silver trump Intense sonorous music, sounding in The knights to hall. Shrill clinked the corridors Through all the courts with clashing heels, or moved With silken murmurs, and elastic sounds Of lady laughters light; as in they flowed Lord, Liegeman, Peer, and Prince, and Paladin, And dame and damsel, clad in dimpling silk And gleaming pearl; who, while the groaning roofs Re-echoed royal music, swept adown The spacious hall, with due obeisance made To the high dais, and on glittering seats Dropped one by one, like flocks of burnished birds That settle down with sunset-painted plumes On gorgeous woods. Again from the outer wall The intermitted trumpet blared; and each Pert page, a-tiptoe, from the benches leaned To see the minstrel-knights, gold-filleted, That entered now the hall: Sir Mandeville, The Swan of Eisnach; Wilfrid of the Hills; Wolfram, surnamed of Willow-brook; and next Tannhauser, christened of the Golden Harp; With Walter of the Heron-chase; and Max, The seer; Sir Rudolph, of the Ravencrest; And Franz, the falconer. They entered, each In order, followed by a blooming boy That bore his harp, and, pacing forward, bowed Before the Landgrave and Elizabeth. Pale sat the Princess in her chair of state, Perusing with fixed eyes, that all belied Her throbbing heart, the carven architrave, Whereon the intricate much-vexed design Of leaf and stem disinterwined itself With infinite laboriousness, at last Escaping in a flight of angel forms; As though the carver's thought had been to show The weary struggle of the soul to free Her flight from earth's bewilderment, and all That frets her in the flesh. But when, erewhile, The minstrels entered, and Tannhauser bowed Before the dais, the Landgrave, at her side, Saw, as he mused what theme to give for song, The pallid forehead of Elizabeth Flush to the fair roots of her golden hair, And thought within himself: "Our knight delays To own a love that aims so near our throne; Hence, haply, this late absence from our court, And those bewildered moods which I have marked: But since love lightly catches, where it can, At any means to make itself approved, And since the singer may to song confide What the man dares not trust to simple speech, I, therefore, so to ease two hearts at once, And signify our favor unto both, Will to our well-beloved minstrels give No theme less sweet than Love: for, surely, he That loves the best, will sing the best, and bear The prize from all." Therewith the Landgrave rose, And all the murmuring Hall was hushed to hear. "O well-beloved minstrels, in my mind I do embrace you all, and heartily Bid you a lavish welcome to these halls. Oft have you flooded this fair space with song, Waked these voiced walls, and vocal made yon roof, As waves of surging music lapped against Its resonant rafters. Often have your strains Ennobled souls of true nobility, Rapt by your perfect pleadings in the cause Of all things pure unto a purer sense Of their exceeding loveliness. No power Is subtler o'er the spirit of man than Song -- Sweet echo of great thoughts, that, in the mind Of him who hears congenial echoes waking, Remultiplies the praise of what is good. Song cheers the emulous spirit to the top Of Virtue's rugged steep, from whence, all heights Of human worth attained, the mortal may Conjecture of God's unattainable, Which is Perfection. -- Faith, with her sisters twain Of Hope and Charity, ye oft have sung, And loyal Truth have lauded, and have wreathed A coronal of music round the brows Of stainless Chastity; nor less have praised High-minded Valor, in whose righteous hand Burns the great sword of flaming Fortitude, And have stirred up to deeds of high emprize Our noble knights (yourselves among the noblest) Whether on German soil for me, their prince, Fighting, or in the Land of Christ for God. Sing ye to-day another theme; to-day Within our glad society we see, To fellowship of loving friends restored, A long-missed face; and hungerly our ears Wait the melodious murmurs of a harp That wont to feed them daintily. What drew Our singer forth, and led the fairest light Of all our galaxy to swerve astray From his fixed orbit, and what now respheres, After deflection long, our errant orb, Implies a secret that the subtle power Of Song, perchance, may solve. Be then your theme As universal as the heart of man, Giving you scope to touch its deepest depths, Its highest heights, and reverently to explore Its mystery of mysteries. Sing of Love: Tell us, ye noble poets, from what source Springs the prime passion; to what goal it tends! Sing it how brave, how beautiful, how bright, In essence how ethereal, in effect How palpable, how human yet divine. Up! up! loved singers, smite into the chords, The lists are opened, set your lays in rest, And who of Love best chants the perfect praise, Him shall Elizabeth as conqueror hail And round his royal temples bind the bays." He said, and sat. And from the middle-hall Four pages, bearers of the blazoned urn That held the name-scrolls of the listed bards, Moved to Elizabeth. Daintily her hand Dipped in the bowl, and one drawn scroll delivered Back to the pages, who, perusing, cried: "Sir Wolfram of the Willow-brook, -- begin." Up rose the gentle singer -- he whose lays, Melodious-melancholy, through the Land Live to this day -- and, fair obeisance made, Assumed his harp and stood in act to sing. Awhile, his dreamy fingers o'er the chords Wandered at will, and to the roof was turned His meditative face; till, suddenly, A soft light from his spiritual eyes Broke, and his canticle he thus began: -- "Love among the saints of God, Love within the hearts of men, Love in every kindly sod That breeds a violet in the glen; Love in heaven, and Love on earth, Love in all the amorous air; Whence comes Love? ah! tell me where Had such a gracious Presence birth? Lift thy thoughts to Him, all-knowing, In the hallowed courts above; From His throne, forever flowing, Springs the fountain of all Love: Down to earth the stream descending Meets the hills, and murmurs then, In a myriad channels wending, Through the happy haunts of men. Blessed ye, earth's sons and daughters, Love among you flowing free; Guard, oh! guard its sacred waters, Tend on them religiously: Let them through your hearts steal sweetly, With the Spirit, wise and bland, Minister unto them meetly, Touch them not with carnal hand. "Maiden, fashioned so divinely, Whom I worship from afar, Smile thou on my soul benignly Sweet, my solitary star: Gentle harbinger of gladness, Still be with me on the way; Only soother of my sadness, Always near, though far away: Always near, since first upon me Fell thy brightness from above, And my troubled heart within me Felt the sudden flow of Love; At thy sight that gushing river Paused, and fell to perfect rest, And the pool of Love forever Took thy image to its breast. "Let me keep my passion purely, Guard its waters free from blame, Hallow Love, as knowing surely It returneth whence it came; From all channels, good or evil, Love, to its pure source enticed, Finds its own immortal level In the charity of Christ. "Ye who hear, behold the river, Whence it cometh, whither goes; Glory be to God, the Giver, From whose grace the fountain flows, Flows and spreads through all creation, Counter-charm of every curse, Love, the waters of Salvation, Flowing through the universe!" And still the rapt bard, though his voice had ceased, And all the Hall had murmured into praise, Pursued his plaintive theme among the chords, Blending with instinct fine the intricate throng Of thoughts that flowed beneath his touch to find Harmonious resolution. As he closed, Tannhauser rising, fretted with delay, Sent flying fingers o'er the strings, and sang: -- "Love be my theme! Sing her awake, My harp, for she hath tamely slept In Wolfram's song, a stagnant lake O'er which a shivering star hath crept. "Awake, dull waters, from your sleep, Rise, Love, from thy delicious well, A fountain! -- yea, but flowing deep With nectar and with hydromel; "With gurgling murmurs sweet, that teach My soul a sleep-distracting dream, Till on the marge I lie, and reach My longing lips towards the stream; "Whose waves leap upwards to the brink With drowning kisses to invite And drag me, willing, down to drink Delirious draughts of rare Delight; "Who careless drink, as knowing well The happy pastime shall not tire, For Love is inexhaustible, And all-unfailing my Desire. "Love's fountain-marge is fairly spread With every incense-flower that blows, With flossy sedge, and moss that grows For fervid limbs a dewy bed; "And fays and fairies flit and wend To keep the sweet stream flowing free, And on Love's languid votary The little elves delighted tend; "And bring him honey-dews to sip, Rare balms to cool him after play, Or with sweet unguents smooth away The kiss-crease on his ruffled lip; "And lily white his limbs they lave, And roses in his cheeks renew, That he, refreshed, return to glue His lips to Love's caressent wave; "And feel, in that immortal kiss, His mortal instincts die the death, And human fancy fade beneath The taste of unimagined bliss! "Thus, gentle audience, since your ear Best loves a metaphoric lay, Of mighty Love I warble here In figures, such as Fancy may: "Now know ye how of Love I think As of a fountain, failing never, On whose soft marge I lie, and drink Delicious draughts of Joy forever." Abrupt he ceased, and sat. And for a space, No longer than the subtle lightning rests Upon a sultry cloud at eventide, The Princess smiled, and on her parted lips Hung inarticulate applause; but she Sudden was 'ware that all the hall was mute With blank disapprobation; and her smile Died, and vague fear was quickened in her heart As Walter of the Heron-chase began: -- "O fountain ever fair and bright, He hath beheld thee, source of Love, Who sung thee springing from above, Celestial from the founts of Light; "But he who from thy waters rare Hath thought to drain a gross delight, Blind in his spiritual sight, Hath ne'er beheld thee, fountain fair! "Hath never seen the silver glow Of thy glad waves, crystalline clear, Hath never heard within his ear The music of thy murmurous flow. "The essence of all Good thou art, Thy waters are immortal Ruth, Thy murmurs are the voice of Truth, And music in the human heart: "Thou yieldest Faith that soars on high, And Sympathy that dwells on earth; The tender trust in human worth, The hope that lives beyond the sky. "Oh! waters of the living Word, Oh! fair vouchsafed us from above, Oh! fountain of immortal Love, What song of thee erewhile I heard! "Learn, sacrilegious bard, from me How all ignoble was thy strain, That sought with trivial song to stain The fountain of Love's purity; "That fountain thou hast never found, And shouldst thou come with lips of fire To slake the thirst of brute Desire, 'T would shrink and shrivel to the ground: "Who seeks in Love's pure stream to lave His gross heart, finds damnation near; Who laves in Love his spirit clear Shall win Salvation from the wave." And now again, as when the plaintive lay Of Wolfram warbled to harmonious close, The crowd grew glad with plaudits; and again Tannhauser, ruffled, rose his height, and smote Rude in the chords his prelude of reply: -- "What Love is this that melts with Ruth, Whose murmurs are the voice of Truth? Ye dazed singers, cease to dream, And learn of me your human theme: Of that great Passion at whose feet The vassal-world lies low, Of Love the mighty, Love the sweet, I sing, who reigus below; Who makes men fierce, tame, wild, or kind, Sovran of every mood, Who rules the heart, and rules the mind, And courses through the blood: Slave of that lavish Power I sing, Dispenser of all good, Whose pleasure-fountain is the spring Of sole beatitude. "Sing ye of Love ye ne'er possessed In wretched tropes -- a vain employment! I sing the passion in my breast, And know Love only in Enjoyment." To whom, while all the rustling hall was moved With stormy indignation, stern uprose, Sharp in retort, Sir Wilfrid of the Hills: "Up, minstrels! rally to the cry Of outraged Love and Loyalty; Drive on this slanderer, all the throng, And slay him in a storm of song. O lecher! shall I sing to thee Of Love's untainted purity, Of simple Faith, and tender Ruth, Of Chastity and loyal Truth? As well sing Day's resplendent birth To the blind mole that delves the earth, As seek from gross hearts, sloughed in sin, Approval of pure Love to win! Rather from thee I'll wring applause For Love, the Avenger of his cause; Great Love, the chivalrous and strong, To whose wide grasp all arms belong, The lance, the battle-axe, and thong, -- And eke the mastery in song. "Love in my heart in all the pride Of kinghood sits, and at his side, To do the bidding of his lord, Martial Valor holds the sword; He strikes for Honor, in the name Of Virtue and fair woman's fame, And bids me shed my dearest blood To venge aspersed maidenhood: Who soils her with licentious lie, Him will I hew both hip and thigh, Or in her cause will dearly die. But thou, who in thy flashy song Hast sought to do all Honor wrong, Pass on, -- I will not stoop my crest To smite thee, nor lay lance in rest. Thy brawling words, of riot born, Are worthy only of my scorn; Thus at thy ears this song I fling, Which in thy heart may plant its sting, If ruined Conscience yet may wring Remorse from such a guilty thing Scarce from his lips had parted the last word When, through the rapturous praise that raug around, Fierce from his seat, uprising, red with rage, With scornful lip, and contumelious eye, Tannhauser clanged among the chords, and sang: "Floutest thou me, thou grisly Bard? Beware, lest I the just reward On thy puffed insolence bestow, And cleave thee with my falchion's blow, -- When I in song have laid thee low. I serve a Mistress mightier far Than tinkling rill, or twinkling star, And, as in my great Passion's glow Thy passion-dream will melt like snow, So I, Love's champion, at her call, Will make thee shrink in field or hall, And roll before me like a ball. "Thou pauper-minded pedant dim, Thou starveling-soul, lean heart and grim, Wouldst thou of Love the praises hymn? Then let the gaunt hyena howl In praise of Pity; let the owl Whoop the high glories of the noon, And the hoarse chough becroak the moon! What canst thou prate of Love? I trow She never graced thy open brow, Nor flushed thy cheek, nor blossomed fair Upon thy parted lips; nor e'er Bade unpent passion wildly start Through the forced portals of thy heart To stream in triumph from thine eye, Or else delicious death to die On other lips, in sigh on sigh. "Of Love, dispenser of all bliss, Of Love, that crowns me with a kiss, I here proclaim me champion-knight; And in her cause will dearly fight With sword or song, in hall or plain, And make the welkin ring again With my fierce blows, or fervent strain. But for such Love as thou canst feel, Thou wisely hast abjured the steel, Averse to lay thy hand on hilt, Or in her honor ride a tilt: Tame Love full tamely may'st thou jilt, And keep bone whole, and blood unspilt." Out flushed Sir Wilfrid's weapon, and outleapt From every angry eye a thousand darts Of unsheathed indignation, and a shout Went up among the rafters, and the Hall Swayed to and fro with tumult; till the voice Of our liege lord roared "Peace!" and, midst the clang Of those who parted the incensed bards, Sounded the harp of Wolfram. Calm he stood, He only calm of all the brawling crowd, Which yet, as is its wont, contagion caught From neighboring nobleness, and a stillness fell On all, and in the stillness soft he sang: "O, from your sacred seats look down, Angels and ministers of good; With sanctity our spirits crown, And crush the vices of the blood! "Open our hearts and set them free, That heavenly light may enter in; And from this fair society Obliterate the taint of sin. "Thee, holy Love, I bid arise Propitious to my votive lay; Shine thou upon our darkened eyes, And lead us on the perfect way; "As, in the likeness of a Star, Thou once arosest, guidance meet, And led'st the sages from afar To sit at holy Jesu's feet: "So guide us, safe from Satan's snares, Shine out, sweet Star, around, above, Till we have scaled the mighty stairs, And reached thy mansions, Heavenly Love!" Then, while great shouts went up of "Give the prize To Wolfram," leapt Tannhauser from his seat, Fierce passion flaming from his lustrous orbs. And, as a sinner, desperate to add Depth to damnation by one latest crime, Dies boastful of his blasphemies -- even so, Tannhauser, conscious of the last disgrace Incurred by such song in such company, Intent to vaunt the vastness of his sin, Thus, as in ecstasy, the song renewed: "Goddess of Beauty, thee I hymn, And ever worship at thy shrine; Thou, who on mortal senses dim Descending, makest man divine. "Who hath embraced thee on thy throne, And pastured on thy royal kiss, He, happy, knows, and knows alone, Love's full beatitude of bliss. "Grim bards, of Love who nothing know, Now cease the unequal strife between us; Dare as I dared; to Horsel go, And taste Love on the lips of Venus." Uprose on every side and rustled down The affrighted dames; and, like the shuddering crowd Of party-colored leaves that flits before The gust of mid October, all at once A hundred jewelled shoulders, huddling, swept The hall, and slanted to the doors, and fled Before the storm, which now from shaggy brows 'Gan dart indignant lightnings. One alone Of all that awe-struck womanhood remained, The Princess. She, a purple harebell frail, That, swathed with whirlwind, to the bleak rock clings When half a forest falls before the blast, Rooted in utter wretchedness, and robed In mockery of splendid state, still sat; Still watched the waste that widened in her life; And looked as one that in a nightmare hangs Upon an edge of horror, while from beneath The creeping billow of calamity Sprays all his hair with cold; but hand or foot He may not move, because the formless Fear Gapes vast behind him. Grief within the void Of her stark eyes stood tearless: terror blanched Her countenance; and, over cloudy brows, The shaken diamond made a restless light, And trembled as the trembling star that hangs O'er Cassiopeia i' the windy north. But now, from farthest end to end of all The sullen movement swarming underneath, Uprolled deep hollow groans of growing wrath. And, where erewhile in rainbow crescent ranged The bright-eyed beauties of the court, fast thronged Faces inflamed with wrath, that rose and fell Tumultuously gathering from between Sharp-slanting lanes of steel. For every sword Flashed bare upon a sudden; and over these, Through the wide bursten doors the sinking sun Streamed lurid, lighting up that steely sea; Which, spotted white with foamy plumes, and ridged With glittering iron, clashed together and closed About Tannhauser. Careless of the wrath Roused by his own rash song, the singer stood; Rapt in remembrance, or by fancy fooled A visionary Venus to pursue, With eyes that roamed in rapture the blank air. Until the sharp light of a hundred swords Smote on the fatal trance, and scattered all Its fervid fascination. Swift from sheath Then leapt the glaive and glittered in his hand, And warily, with eye upon the watch, Receding to the mighty main support That, from the centre, propped the ponderous roof, There, based against the pillar, fronting full His sudden foes, he rested resolute, Waiting assault. But, hollow as a bell, That tolls for tempest from a storm-clad tower, Rang through the jangling shock of arms and men The loud voice of the Landgrave. Wide he swept The solemn sceptre, crying "Peace!" then said: "Ye Lieges of Thuringia! whose just scorn, In judgment sitting on your righteous brows, Would seem to have forecast the dubious doom Awaiting our decision; ye have heard, Not wrung by torture from reluctant lips, Nor yet breathed forth with penitential pain In prayer for pardon, nay, but rather fledged And barbed with boastful insolence, such a crime Confest, as turns to burning coals of wrath The dewy eyes of Pity, nor to Hope One refuge spares, save such as rests perchance Within the bounteous bosom of the Church; Who, caring for the frailty of her flock, Holdsmercy measureless as heaven is high. Shuddering, ourselves have listened to what breaks All bonds that bound to this unhappy man The covenanted courtesies of knights, The loyalties of lives by faith knit fast In spiritual communion. What behoves, After deliberation, to award In sentence, I to your high council leave, Undoubting. What may mitigate in aught The weight of this acknowledged infamy Weigh with due balance. What to justice stern Mild-minded mercy yet may reconcile Search inly. Not with rashness, not in wrath, In voking from the right hand of high God His dread irrevocable angel, Death; Yet not unwary how one spark of hell, If unextinguished, down the night of time May, like the wreckers' beacon from the reefs, Lure many to destruction: nor indeed Unmindful of the doom by fire or steel This realm's supreme tribunals have reserved For those that, dealing in damnation, hold Dark commerce with the common foe of man. Weigh you in all its circumstance this crime: And, worthily judging, though your judgment be As sharp as conscience, be it as conscience clear." He ended: and a bitter interval Of silence o'er the solemn hall congealed, Like frost on a waste water, in a place Where rocks confront each other. Marshalled round, Black-bearded cheek and chin, with hand on heft Bent o'er the pommels of their planted swords A dreary cirque of faces ominous, The sullen barons on each other stared Significant. As, ere the storm descends Upon a Druid grove, the great trees stand Looking one way, and stiller than their wont, Until the thunder, rolling, frees the wind That rocks them altogether; even so, That savage circle of grim-gnarled men, Awhile in silence storing stormy thoughts, Stood breathless; till a murmur moved them all, And louder growing, and louder, burst at last To a universal irrepressible roar Of voices roaring, "Let him die the death!" And, in that roar released, a hundred swords Rushed forward, and in narrowing circle sloped Sharp rims of shining horror round the doomed, Undaunted minstrel. Then a piteous cry; And from the purple baldachin down sprang The Princess, gleaming like a ghost, and slid Among the swords, and standing in the midst Swept a wild arm of prohibition forth. Cowering, recoiled the angry, baffled surge, Leaving on either side a horrid hedge Of rifted glare, as when the Red Sea waves Hung heaped and sundered, ere they roaring fell On Egypt's chariots. So there came a hush; And in the hush her voice, heavy with scorn: "Or shall I call you men? or beasts? who seem No nobler than the bloodhound and the wolf Which scorn to prey upon their proper kind! Christians I will not call you! who defraud That much-misapprehended holy name Of reverence due by such a deed as, done, Will clash against the charities of Christ, And make a marred thing and a mockery Of the fair face of Mercy. You dull hearts, And hard! have ye no pity for yourselves? For man no pity? man whose common cause Is shamed and saddened by the stain that falls Upon a noble nature! You blind hands, Thrust out so fast to smite a fallen friend! Did ye not all conspire, whilst yet he stood The stateliest soul among you, to set forth And fix him in the foremost ranks of men? Content that he, your best, should bear the brunt, And head the van against the scornful fiend That will not waste his weapons on the herd, But saves them for the noblest. And shall Hell Triumph through you, that triumph in the shame Of this eclipse that blots your brightest out, And leaves you dark in his extinguished light? O, who that lives but hath within his heart Some cause to dread the suddenness of death? And God is merciful; and suffers us, Even for our sins' sake; and doth spare us time, Time to grow ready, time to take farewell! And sends us monitors and ministers -- Old age, that steals the fulness from the veins; And griefs, that take the glory from the eyes; And pains, that bring us timely news of death; And tears, that teach us to be glad of him. For who can take farewell of all his sins On such a sudden summons to the grave? Against high Heaven hath this man sinned, or you? O, if it be against high Heaven, to Heaven Remit the compt! lest, from the armory Of the Eternal Justice ye pluck down, Heedless, that bolt the Highest yet withholds From this low-fallen head, -- how fallen! how low! Yet not so fallen, not so low fallen, but what Divine Redemption, reaching everywhere, May reach at last even to this wretchedness, And, out of late repentance, raise it up With pardon into peace." She paused: she touched, As with an angel's finger, him whose pride Obdurate now had yielded, and he lay, Vanquished by Pity, broken at her feet. She, lingering, waited answer, but none came Across the silence. And again she spake: "O, not for him alone, and not for that Which to remember now makes life for me A wilderness of homeless griefs, I plead Before you; but, O Princes, for yourselves; For all that in your nobler nature stirs To vindicate Forgiveness and enlarge The lovely laws of Pity! Which of you, Here in the witness of all-judging God, Stands spotless? Which of you will boast himself More miserably injured by this man Than I, whose heart of all that lived in it He hath untenanted? O, horrible! Unheard of! from the blessed lap of life To send the soul, asleep in all her sins, Down to perdition! Be not yours the hands To do this desperate wrong in sight of all The ruthful faces of the Saints in Heaven." She passionately pleading thus, her voice Over their hearts moved like that earnest wind That, laboring long against some great nigh cloud, Sets free, at last, a solitary star, Then sinks; but leaves the night not all forlorn Ere the soft rain o'ercomes it. This long while Wolfram, whose harp and voice were overborne By burly brawlers in the turbulence That shook that stormy senate, stood apart With vainly-vigilant eye, and writhen hands, All in mute trouble: too gentle to approve, Too gentle to prevent, what passed: and still Divided in himself 'twixt sharpest grief To see his friend so fallen, and a drear Strange horror of the crime whereby he fell. So, like a headland light that down dark waves Shines o'er some sinking ship it fails to save, Looked the pale singer down the lurid hall. But when the pure voice of Elizabeth Ceased, and clear-lighted all with noble thoughts Her face glowed as an angel's, the sweet Bard, Whose generous heart had scaled with that loved voice Up to the lofty leve is where it ceased, Stood forth, and from the dubious silence caught And carried up the purpose of her prayer; And drew it out, and drove it to the heart, And clenched it with conviction in the mind, And fixed it firm in judgment. From deep muse The Landgrave started, toward Tannhanser strode, And, standing o'er him with an eye wherein Salt sorrow and a moody pity gleamed, Spake hoarse of utterance: "Arise! go forth! Go from us, mantled in the shames which make Thee, stranger whom mine eye henceforth abhors, The mockery of the man I loved, and mourn. Go from these halls yet holy with the voice Of her whose intercession for thy sake, -- If any sacred sorrow yet survive All ruined virtues, -- in remorse shall steep The memory of her wrongs. For thee remains One hope, unhappiest! reject it not. There goeth a holy pilgrimage to Rome, Which not yet from the borders of our land Is parted; pious souls and meek, whom thou Haply may'st join, and of those holy hands, Which sole have power to bind or loose, receive Remission of thy sin. For save alone The hand of Christ's high Vicar upon earth A hurt so heinous what may heal? What save A soul so fallen? Go forth upon thy ways, Which are not ours: for we no more may mix Congenial minds in converse sweet, no more Together pace these halls, nor ever hear Thy harp as once when all was pure and glad, Among the days which have been. All thy paths Henceforth be paths of penitence and prayer, Whilst over ours thy memory moving makes A shadow, and a silence in our talk. Get thee from hence, O all that now remains Of one we honored! Till the hand that holds The keys of heaven hath oped for thee the doors Of life in that far distance, let mine eye See thee no more. Go from us!" Even then, Even whilst he spake, like some sweet miracle, From darkening lands that glimmered through the doors Came, faintly heard along the filmy air That bore it floating near, a choral chant Of pilgrims pacing by the castle wall; And "salvum me fac Domine" they sung Sonorous, in the ghostly going out Of the red-litten eve along the land. Then, like a hand across the heart of him That heard it moved that music from afar, And beckoned forth the better hope which leads A man's life up along the rugged road Of high resolve. Tannhauser moved, as moves The folded serpent smitten by the spring And stirred with sudden sunlight, when he casts His spotted skin, and, renovated, gleams With novel hues. One lingering long look, Wild with remorse and vague with vast regrets, He lifted to Elizabeth. His thoughts Were then as those dumb creatures in their pain That make a language of a look. He tossed Aloft his arms, and down to the great doors With drooped brows striding, groaned "To Rome, to Rome!" Whilst the deep hall behind him caught the cry And drove it clamorous after him, from all Its hollow roofs reverberating "Rome!" A fleeting darkness through the lurid arch; A flying form along the glare beyond; And he was gone. The scowling Eve reached out Across the hills a fiery arm, and took Tannhauser to her, like a sudden death. So ended that great Battle of the Bards, Whereof some rumor to the end of time Will echo in this land. And, voided now Of all his multitudes, the mighty Hall, Dumb, dismally dispageanted, laid bare His ghostly galleries to the mournful moon; And Night came down, and Silence, and the twain Mingled beneath the starlight. Wheeled at will The flitter-winged bat round lonely towers Where, one by one, from darkening casements died The taper's shine; the howlet from the hills Whooped; and Elizabeth, alone with Night And Silence, and the Ghost of her slain youth, Lay lost among the ruins of that day. As when the buffeting gusts, that adverse blow Over the Caribbean Sea, conspire Conflicting breaths, and, savagely begot, The fierce tornado rotatory wheels, Or sweeps centripetal, or, all forces joined, Whirls circling o'er the maddened waves, and they Lift up their foaming backs beneath the keel Of some frail vessel, and, careering high Over a sunken rock, with a sudden plunge Confound her, -- stunned and strained, upon the peak Poising one moment, ere she forward fall To float, dishelmed, a wreck upon the waves: So rose, engendered by what furious blasts Of passion, that fell hurricane that swept Elizabeth to her doom, and left her now A helmless hull upon the savage seas Of life, without an aim, to float forlorn. Longwhile, still shuddering from the shock that jarred The bases of her being, piteous wreck Of ruined hopes, upon her couch she lay, Of life and time oblivious; all her mind, Locked in a rigid agony of grief, Clasping, convulsed, its unwept woe; her heart Writhing and riven; and her burthened brain Blind with the weight of tears that would not flow. But when, at last, the healing hand of Time Had wrought repair upon her shattered frame; And those unskilled physicians of the mind -- Importunate, fond friends, a host of kin -- Drew her perforce from solitude, she passed Back to the world, and walked its weary ways With dull mechanic motions, such as make A mockery of life. Yet gave she never, By weeping or by wailing, outward sign Of that great inward agony that she bore; For she was not of those whose sternest sorrow Outpours in plaints, or weeps itself in dew; Not passionate she, nor of the happy souls Whose grief comes tempered with the gift of tears. So, through long weeks and many a weary moon, Silent and self-involved, without a sigh, She suffered. There, whence consolation comes, She sought it -- at the foot of Jesu's cross, And on the bosom of the Virgin-spouse, And in communion with the blessed Saints. But chief for him she prayed whose grievous sin Had wrought her desolation; God besought To touch the leprous soul and make it clean; And sued the Heavenly Pastor to recall The lost sheep, wandered from the pleasant ways, Back to the pasture of the paths of peace. So thrice a day, what time the blushing morn Crimsoned the orient sky, and when the sun Glared from mid-heaven or weltered in the west, Fervent she prayed; nor in the night forewent Her vigils; till at last from prayer she drew A calm into her soul, and in that calm Heard a low whisper -- like the breeze that breaks The deep peace of the forest ere the chirp Of earliest bird salutes the advent Day -- Thrill through her, herald of the dawn of Hope. Then most she loved from forth her leafy tower Listless to watch the irrevocable clouds Roll on, and daylight waste itself away Along those dreaming woods, whence evermore She mused, "He will return"; and fondly wove Her webs of wistful fantasy till the moon Was high in heaven, and in its light she kneeled, A faded watcher through the weary night, A meek, sweet statue at the silver shrines, In deep, perpetual prayer for him she loved. And from the pitying Sisterhood of Saints Haply that prayer shall win an angel down To be his unseen minister, and draw A drowning conscience from the deeps of Hell. Time put his sickle in among the days. Blithe Summer came, and into dimples danced The fair and fructifying Earth, anon Showering the gathered guerdon of her play Into the lap of Autumn; Autumn stored The gift, piled ready to the palsied hand Of blind and begging Winter; and when he Closed his well-provendered days, Spring lightly came And scattered sweets upon his sullen grave. And twice the seasons passed, the sisters three Doingglad service for their hoary brother, And twice twelve moons had waxed and waned, and twice The weary world had pilgrimed round the sun, When from the outskirts of the land there came Rumor of footsore penitents from Rome Returning, jubilant of remitted sin. So chanced it, on a silent April eve The westering sun along the Wartburg vale Shot level beams, and into glory touched The image of Madonna, -- where it stands Hard by the common way that climbs the steep, -- The image of Madonna, and the face Of meek Elizabeth turned towards the Queen Of Sorrows, sorrowful in patient prayer; When, through the silence and the sleepy leaves, A breeze blew up the vale, and on the breeze Floated a plaintive music. She that heard, Trembled; the prayer upon her parted lips Suspended hung, and one swift hand she pressed Against the palpitating heart whose throbs Confused the cunning of her ears. Ah God! Was this the voice of her returning joy? The psalm of shriven pilgrims to their homes Returning? Ay! it swells upon the breeze The "Nunc Dimittis" of glad souls that sue After salvation seen to part in peace. Then up she sprung, and to a neighboring copse Swift as a startled hind, when the ghostly moon Draws sudden o'er the silvered heather-bells The monstrous shadow of a cloud, she sped; Pausing, low-crouched, within a maze of shrubs, Whose emerald slivers fringed the rugged way So broad, the pilgrim's garments as they passed Would brush the leaves that hid her. And anon They came in double rank, and two by two, With cumbered steps, with haggard gait that told Of bodily toil and trouble, with besoiled And tattered garments; nathless with glad eyes, Whence looked the soul disburthered of her sin, Climbing the rude path, two by two they came. And she, that watched with what intensest gaze Them coming, saw old faces that she knew, And every face turned skywards, while the lips Poured out the heavenly psalm, and every soul Sitting seraphic in the upturned eyes With holy fervor rapt upon the song. And still they came and passed, and still she gazed; And still she thought, "Now comes he!" and the chant Went heavenwards, and the filed pilgrims fared Beside her, till their tale wellnigh was told. Then o'er her soul a shuddering horror crept, And, in that agony of mind that makes Doubt more intolerable than despair, With sudden hand she brushed aside the sprays, And from the thicket leaned and looked. The last Of all the pilgrims stood within the ken Of her keen gaze, -- save him all scanned, and he No sooner scanned than cancelled from her eyes By vivid lids swept down to lash away Him hateful, being other than she sought. So for a space, blind with dismay, she paused, But, he approaching, from the thicket leapt, Clutched with wrung hands his robe, and gasped, "The Knight That with you went, returns not?" In his psalm The fervid pilgrim made no pause, yet gazed At his wild questioner, intelligent Of her demand, and shook his head and passed. Then she, with that mute answer stabbed to the heart, Sprung forward, clutched him yet once more, and cried, "In Mary's name, and in the name of God, Received the knight his shrift?" And, once again, The pilgrim, sorrowful, shook his head and sighed, Sighed in the singing of his psalm, and passed. Then prone she fell upon her face, and prone Within her mind Hope's shattered fabric fell, -- The dear and delicate fabric of frail Hope Wrought by the simple cunning of her thoughts, That, laboring long, through many a dreamy day And many a vigil of the wakeful night, Piecemeal had reared it, patiently, with pain, From out the ruins of her ancient peace. O ancient Peace! that never shalt return; O ruined Hope! O Fancy! over-fond, Futile artificer that build'st on air, Marred is thy handiwork, and thou shalt please With plastic fantasies her soul no more. So lay she cold against the callous ground, Her pale face pillowed on a stone, her eyes Wide open, fixed into a ghastly stare That knew no speculation; for her mind Was dark, and all her faculty of thought Compassionately cancelled. But she lay Not in the embrace of loyal Death, who keeps His bride forever, but in treacherous arms Of Sleep that, sated, will restore to Grief Her, snatched a sweet space from his cruel clutch, So lay she cold against the callous ground, And none was near to heed her, as the sun, About him drawing the vast-skirted clouds, Went down behind the western hill to die. Now Wolfram, when the rumor reached his ears That, from their quest of saving grace returned, The pilgrims all within the castle-court Were gathered, flocked about by happy friends, Passed from his portal swiftly, and ran out And joined the clustering crowd. Full many a face, Wasted and wan, he recognized, and clasped Full many a lean hand clutching at his own, Of those who, stretched upon the grass, or propped Against the bowlder-stones, were pressed about By weeping women, clamorous to unbind Their sandal-thongs and bathe the bruised feet. Then up and down, and swiftly through and through, And round about, skirting the crowd, he hurried, With greetings fair to all; till, filled with fear, Half-hopeless of his quest, yet harboring hope, He paused perplexed beside the castle gates. There, at his side, the youngest of the train, A blue-eyed pilgrim tarried, and to him Turned Wolfram questioning of Tannhauser's fate, And learnt in few words how, his sin pronounced Deadly and irremediable, the knight Had faded from before the awful face Of Christ's incensed Vicar; and none knew Whither he wandered, to what desolate lands, Hiding his anguish from the eyes of men. Then Wolfram groaned, and clasped his hands, and cried, "Merciful God!" and fell upon his knees In purpose as of prayer, -- but, suddenly, About the gate the crowd moved, and a cry Went up for space, when, rising, he beheld Four maids who on a pallet bore the form Of wan Elizabeth. The whisper grew That she had met the pilgrims, and had learned Tannhauser's fate, and fallen beside the way. And Wolfram, in the ghastly torchlight, saw The white face of the Princess turned to his, And for a space their eyes met; then she raised One hand towards Heaven, and smiled as who should say, "O friend, I journey unto God; farewell!" But he could answer nothing; for his eyes Were blinded by his tears, and through his tears Dimly, as in a dream, he saw her borne Up the broad granite steps that wind within The palace; and his inner eye, entranced, Saw in a vision four great Angels stand, Expectant of her spirit, at the foot Of flights of blinding brilliancy of stairs Innumerable, that through the riven skies Scaled to the City of the Saints of God. Then, when thick night fell on his soul, and all The vision fled, he solitary stood A crazed man within the castle-court; Whence issuing, with wild eyes and wandering gait He through the darkness, groaning, passed away. All that lone night, along the haunted hills, By dizzy brinks of mountain precipices, He fleeted, aimless as an unused wind That wastes itself about a wilderness. Sometimes from low-browed caves, and hollow crofts, Under the hanging woods, there came and went A voice of wail upon the midnight air, As of a lost soul mourning; and the voice Was still the voice of his remembered friend. Sometimes (so fancy mocked the fears she bred!) He heard along the lone and eery land Low demon laughters; and a sullen strain Of horror swelled upon the breeze; and sounds Of wizard dance, with shawm and timbrel, flew Ever betwixt waste air and wandering cloud O'er pathless peaks. Then, in the distance tolled, Or seemed to toll, a knell: the breezes dropped: And, in the sudden pause, that passing bell With ghostly summons bade him back return To where, till dawn, a shade among the shades Of Wartburg, watching one lone tower, he saw A light that waned with all his earthly hopes. The calm Dawn came and from the eastern cliff, Athwart the glistening slopes and cold green copse, Called to him, careless of a grief not hers; But he, from all her babbling birds, and all Her vexing sunlight, with a weary heart Drew close the darkness of the glens and glades About him, flying through the forest deeps. And day and night, dim eve and dewy dawn, Three times returning, went uncared for by; And thrice the double twilights rose and fell About a land where nothing seemed the same, At eve or dawn, as in the time gone by. But, when the fourth day like a stranger slipped To his unhonored grave, God's Angel passed Across the threshold of the Landgrave's hall, And in his bosom bore to endless peace The weary spirit of Elizabeth. Then, in that hour when Death with gentle hand Had drooped the quiet eyelids o'er the eyes That Wolfram loved, to Wolfram's heart there came A calmness like the calmness of a grave Walled safe from all the noisy walks of men In some green place of peace where daisies grow. His tears fell in the twilight with the dews, Soft as the dews that with the twilight fell, When, over scarred and weather-wounded walls, Sharp-jagged mountain cones, and tangled quicks, Eve's spirit, settling, laid the land to sleep In skyey trance. Nor yet less soft to fuse Memory with hope, and earth with heaven, to him, Athwart the harsher anguish of that day, There stole with tears the tender human sense Of heavenly mercy. Through that milder mood, Like waifs that float to shore when storms are spent, Flowed to his heart old memories of his friend, O'erwoven with the weed of other griefs, Of other griefs for her that grieved no more -- And of that time when, like a blazing star That moves and mounts between the Lyre and Crown, Tannhauser shone; ere sin came, and with sin Sorrow. And now if yet Tannhauser lived None knew: and if he lived, what hope in life? And if he lived no more, what rest in death? But every way the dreadful doom of sin. Thus, musing much on all the mystery Of life, and death, and love that will not die, He wandered forth, incurious of the way; Which took the wont of other days, and wound Along the valley. Now the nodding star Of even, and the deep, the dewy hour Held all the sleeping circle of the hills; Nor any cloud the stainless heavens obscured, Save where, o'er Horsel folded in the frown Of all his wicked woods, a fleecy fringe Of vapor veiled the slowly sinking moon. There, in the shade, the stillness, o'er his harp Leaning, of love, and life, and death he sang A song to which from all her aery caves The mountain echo murmured in her sleep. But, as the last strain of his solemn song Died off among the solitary stars, There came in answer from the folded hills A note of human woe. He turned, he looked That way the sound came o'er the lonely air; And, seeing, yet believed not that he saw, But, nearer moving, saw indeed hard by, Dark in the darkness of a neighboring hill, Lying among the splintered stones and stubs Flat in the fern, with limbs diffused as one That, having fallen, cares to rise no more, A pilgrim; all his weeds of pilgrimage Hanging and torn, his sandals stained with blood Of bruised feet, and, broken in his hand, His wreathed staff. And Wolfram wistfully Looked in his face, and knew it not. "Alas! Not him," he murmured, "not my friend!" And then, "What art thou, pilgrim? whence thy way? how fall'n In this wild glen? at this lone hour abroad When only Grief is stirring?" Unto whom That other, where he lay in the long grass, Not rising, but with petulant gesture, "Hence! Whate'er I am, it skills not. Thee I know Full well, Sir Wolfram of the Willowbrook, The well-beloved Singer!" Like a dart From a friend's hand that voice through Wolfram went: For Memory over all the ravaged form Wherefrom it issued, wandering, failed to find The man she mourned; but Wolfram, to the voice No stranger, started smit with pain, as all The past on those sharp tones came back to break His heart with hopeless knowledge. And he cried, "Alas, my brother!" Such a change, so drear, In all so unlike all that once he was Showed the lost knight Tannhauser, where he lay Fallen across the split and morselled crags Like a dismantled ruin. And Wolfram said, "O lost! how comest thou, unabsolved, once more Among these valleys visited by death, And shadowed with the shadow of thy sin?" Whereto in scorn Tannhauser, "Be at rest, O fearful in thy righteousness! not thee, Nor grace of thine, I seek." Speaking, he rose The spectre of a beauty waned away; And, like a hollow echo of himself Mocking his own last words, he murmured, "Seek! Alas! what seek I here, or anywhere? Whose way of life is like the crumbled stair That winds and winds about a ruined tower, And leads nowhither!" But Wolfram cried, "Yet turn! For, as I live, I will not leave thee thus. My life shall be about thee, and my voice Lure scared Hope back to find a resting-place Even in the jaws of Death. I do adjure thee, By all that friendship yet may claim, declare That, even though unabsolved, not uncontrite, Thy soul no more hath lapsed into the snare Of that disastrous sorcery. Bid me hail, Seen through the darkness of thy desolation, Some light of purer purpose; since I deem Not void of purpose hast thou sought these paths That range among the places of the past; And I will make defeat of Grief with such True fellowship of tears as shall disarm Her right hand of its scorpions; nor in vain My prayers with thine shall batter at the gates Of Mercy, through all antagonisms of fate Forcing sharp inlet to her throne in Heaven." Whereat Tannhauser, turning tearless eyes On Wolfram, murmured mournfully, "If tears Fiery as those from fallen seraphs distilled, Or centuries of prayers for pardon sighed Sad, as of souls in purgatorial glooms, Might soften condemnation, or restore To her, whom most on earth I have offended, The holy freight of all her innocent hopes Wrecked in this ruined venture, I would weep Salt oceans from these eyes. But I no more May drain the deluge from my heart, no more On any breath of sigh or prayer rebuild The rain bow of discovenanted Hope. Thou, therefore, Wolfram -- for her face, when mine Is dark forever, thine eyes may still behold -- Tell her, if thou unblamed may'st speak of one Signed cross by the curse of God and cancelled out, How, at the last, though in remorse of all That makes allegiance void and valueless, To me has come, with knowledge of my loss, Fealty to that pure passion, once betrayed, Wherewith I loved, and love her." There his voice, Even as a wave that, touching on the shore To which it travelled, is shivered and diffused, Sank, scattered into spray of wasteful sighs, And back dissolved into the deeper grief. To whom, Wolfram, "O answer by the faith In which mankind are kindred, art thou not From Rome, unhappiest?" "From Rome? ah me!" He muttered, "Rome is far off, very far, And weary is the way!" But undeterred Wolfram renewed, "And hast thou not beheld The face of Christ's High Vicar?" And again, "Pass on," he muttered, "what is that to thee?" Whereto, with sorrowful voice, Wolfram, "O all, And all in all to me that love my friend!" "My friend!" Tannhauser laughed a bitter laugh Then sadlier said, "What thou wouldst know, once known, Will cause thee to recall that wasted word And cancel all the kindness in thy thoughts; Yet shalt thou learn my misery, and learn The man so changed, whom once thou calledst 'friend,' That unto him the memory of himself Is as a stranger." Then, with eyes that swam True sorrow, Wolfram stretched his arms and sought To clasp Tannhauser to him: but the other Waved him away, and with a shout that sprang Fierce with self-scorn from misery's deepest depth, "Avaunt!" he cried, "the ground whereon I tread Is ground accurst! "Yet stand not so far off But what thine ears, if yet they will, may take The tale thy lips from mine have sought to learn; Then, sign thyself, and peaceful go thy ways." And Wolfram, for the grief that choked his voice, Could only murmur "Speak!" But for a while Tannhauser to sad silence gave his heart; Then fetched back some far thought, sighing, and said: -- "O Wolfram, by the love of lovelier days Believe I am not so far fallen away From all I was while we might yet be friends, But what these words, haply my last, are true: True as my heart's deep woe what time I felt Cold on my brow tears wept, and wept in vain, For me, among the scorn of altered friends, Parting that day for Rome. Remember this: That when, in the after years to which I pass A by-word, and a mockery, and no more, Thou, honored still by honorable men, Shalt hear my name dishonored, thou may'st say, 'Greatly he grieved for that great sin he sinned.' "Ever, as up the windy Alpine way, We halting oft by cloudy convent doors, My fellow-pilgrims warmed themselves within, And ate and drank, and slept their sleep, all night, I, fasting, slept not; but in ice and snow Wept, aye remembering her that wept for me, And loathed the sin within me. When at length Our way lay under garden terraces Strewn with their dropping blossoms, thick with scents, Among the towers and towns of Italy, Whose sumptuous airs along them, like the ghosts Of their old gods, went sighing, I nor looked Nor lingered, but with bandaged eyeballs prest, Impatient, to the city of the shrine Of my desired salvation. There by night We entered. There, all night, forlorn I lay Bruised, broken, bleeding, all my garments torn, And all my spirit stricken with remorse, Prostrate beneath the great cathedral stairs. So the dawn found me. From a hundred spires A hundred silvery chimes rangjoy: but I Lay folded in the shadow of my shame, Darkening the daylight from me in the dust. Then came a sound of solemn music flowing To where I crouched; voices and trampling feet; And, girt by all his crimson cardinals, In all his pomp the sovran Pontiff stood Before me in the centre of my hopes; Which trembled round him into glorious shapes, Golden, as clouds that ring the risen sun And all the people, all the pilgrims, fell Low at his sacred feet, confessed their sins, And, pardoned, rose with psalms of jubilee And confident glad faces. "Then I sprang To where he paused above me; with wild hands Clutched at the skirts I could not reach; and sank Shiveringly back; crying, 'O holy, and high, And terrible, that hast the keys of heaven! Thou that dost bind and dost unloose, from me, For Mary's sake, and the sweet saints', unbind The grievous burthen of the curse I bear.' And when he questioned, and I told him all The sin that smouldered in my blood, how bred, And all the strangeness of it, then his face Was as the Judgment Angel's; and I hid My own; and, hidden from his eyes, I heard: "'Hast thou within the nets of Satan lain? Hast thou thy soul to her perdition pledged? Hast thou thy lip to Hell's Enchantress lent, To drain damnation from her reeking cup? Then know that sooner from the withered staff That in my hand I hold green leaves shall spring, Than from the brand in hell-fire scorched rebloom The blossoms of salvation.' "The voice ceased, And, with it all things from my sense. I waked I know not when, but all the place was dark: Above me, and about me, and within Darkness: and from that hour by moon or sun Darkness unutterable as of death Where'er I walk. But death himself is near! O, might I once more see her, unseen; unheard, Hear her once more; or know that she forgives Whom Heaven forgives not, nor his own lost peace; I think that even among the nether fires And those dark fields of Doom to which I pass, Some blessing yet would haunt me." Sorrowfully He rose among the tumbled rocks and leaned Against the dark. As one that many a year, Sundered by savage seas unsociable From kin and country, in a desert isle Dwelling till half dishumanized, beholds Haply, one eve, a far-off sail go by, That brings old thoughts of home across his heart; And still the man who thinks -- "They are all gone, Or changed, that loved me once, and I myself No more the same" -- watches the dwindling speck With weary eyes, nor shouts, nor waves a hand; But after, when the night is left alone, A sadness falls upon him, and he feels More solitary in his solitudes, And tears come starting fast; so, tearful, stood Tannhauser, whilst his melancholy thoughts, From following up far off a waning hope, Back to himself came, one by one, more sad Because of sadness troubled. Yet not long He rested thus; but murmured, "Now, farewell: I go to hide me darkly in the groves That she was wont to haunt; where some sweet chance Haply may yield me sight of her, and I May stoop, she passed away, to kiss the ground Made sacred by her passage ere I die." But him departing Wolfram held, "Vain! vain! Thy footstep sways with fever, and thy mind Wavers within thy restless eyes. Lie here, O unrejected, in my arms, and rest!" Now o'er the cumbrous hills began to creep A thin and watery light: a whisper went Vague through the vast and dusky-volumed woods, And, uncompanioned, from a drowsy copse Hard by a solitary chirp came cold, While, spent with inmost trouble, Tannhauser leaned His wan cheek pillowed upon Wolfram's breast, Calm, as in death, with placid lids down locked. And Wolfram prayed within his heart, "Ah, God! Let him not die, not yet, not thus, with all The sin upon his spirit!" But while he prayed Tannhauser raised delirious looks, and sighed, "Hearest thou not the happy songs they sing me? Seest thou not the lovely floating forms? O fair, and fairer far than fancy fashioned! O sweet the sweetness of the songs they sing! For thee, ... they sing ... the goddess waits: for thee With braided blooms the balmy couch strewn, And loosed for thee ... they sing ... the golden zone. Fragrant for thee the lighted spices fume With streaming incense sweet, and sweet for thee The scattered rose, the myrtle crown, the cup, The nectar-cup for thee! ...they sing. Return, Though late, too long desired, ... I hear them sing, Delay no more delights too long delayed: Turn to thy rest; ... they sing ... the married doves Murmur; the Fays soft-sparkling tapers tend; The odors burn the purple bowers among; And Love for thee, and Beauty, waits! ...they sing." "Ah me! ah madman!" Wolfram cried, "yet cram Thy cheated ears, nor chase with credulous heart The fair dissembling of that dream. For thee Not roses now, but thorns; nor myrtle wreath, But cypress rather and the graveyard flower Befitting saddest brows; nor nectar poured, But prayers and tears! For thee in yonder skies An Angel strives with Sin and Death; for thee Yet pleads a spirit purer than thine own: For she is gone! gone to the breast of God! Thy Guardian Angel, while she walked the earth, Thine intercessionary Saint while now For thee she sues about the Throne Thrones, Beyond the stars, our star, Elizabeth! Then Wolfram felt the shattered frame that leaned Across his breast with sudden spasms convulsed. "Dead! is she dead?" Tannhauser murmured, "dead! Gone to the grave, so young! murdered -- by me! Dead -- and by my great sin! O Wolfram, turn Thy face from mine. I am a dying man!" And Wolfram answered, "Dying? ah, not thus! Yet make one sign thou dost repent the past, One word, but one! to say thou hast abhorred That false she-devil that, with her damned charms, Hath wrought this ruin; and I, though all the world Roar out against thee, ay! though fiends of hell Howl from the deeps, yet I, thy friend, even yet Will cry them 'Peace!' and trust the hope I hold Against all desperate odds, and deem thee saved." Whereto Tannhauser, speaking faintly, "Friend, The fiend that haunts in ruins through my heart Will wander sometimes. In the nets I trip, When most I fret the meshes. These spent shafts Are of a sickly brain that shoots awry, Aiming at something better. Bear with me. I die: I pass I know not whither: yet know That I die penitent. O Wolfram, pray, Pray for my soul! I cannot pray myself. I dare not hope: and yet I would not die Without a hope, if any hope, though faint And far beyond this darkness, yet may dwell In the dear death of Him that died for all." He whispering thus; far in the Aurorean East The ruddy sun, uprising, sharply smote A golden finger on the airy harps By Morning hung within her leafy bowers; And all about the budded dells, and woods With sparkling-tasselled tops, from birds and brooks A hundred hallelujahs hailed the light. The whitethorn glistened from the wakening glen: O'er golden gravel danced the dawning rills: All the delighted leaves by copse and glade Gambolled; and breezy bleatings came from flocks Far off in pleasant pastures fed with dew. But whilst, unconscious of the silent change Thus stolen around him, o'er the dying bard Hung Wolfram, on the breeze there came a sound Of mourning moving down the narrow glen; And, looking up, he suddenly was 'ware Of four white maidens, moving in the van Of four black monks who bore upon her bier The flower-strewn corpse of young Elizabeth. And after these, from all the castled hills, A multitude of lieges and of lords; A multitude of men-at-arms, with all Their morions hung with mourning; and in midst His worn cheek channelled with unwonted tears, The Landgrave, weeping for Elizabeth. These, as the sad procession nearer wound, And nearer, trampling bare the feathery weed To where Sir Wolfram rested o'er his friend, Tannhauser caught upon his dying gaze; And caught, perchance, upon the inward eye, Far, far beyond the corpse, the bier, and far Beyond the widening circle of the sun, Some sequel of that vision Wolfram saw: The crowned Spirit by the Jasper Gates; The four white Angels o'er the walls of Heaven, The shores where, tideless, sleep the seas of Time Soft by the City of the Saints of God. Forth, with the strength that lastly comes to break All bonds, from Wolfram's folding arm he leapt, Clambered the pebbly path, and, groaning, fell Flat on the bier of love -- his bourn at last! Then, even then, while question question chased About the ruffled circle of that grief, And all was hubbub by the bier, a noise Of shouts and hymns brake in across the hills, That now o'erflowed with hurrying feet; and came, Dashed to the hip with travel, and dewed with haste, A flying post, and in his hand he bore A withered staff o'erflourished with green leaves; Who, -- followed by a crowd of youth and eld, That sang to stun with sound the lark in heaven, "A miracle! a miracle from Rome! Glory to God that makes the bare bough green!" -- Sprang in the midst, and, hot for answer, asked News of the Knight Tannhauser. Then a monk Of those that, stoled in sable, bore the bier Pointing, with sorrowful hand, "Behold the man!" But straight the other, "Glory be to God! This from the Vicar of the fold of Christ: The withered staff hath flourished into leaves, The brand shall bloom, though burned with fire, and thou -- Thy soul from sin be saved!" To whom, with tears That flashed from lowering lids, Wolfram replied: "To him a swifter message, from a source Mightier than whence thou comest, hath been vouchsafed. See these stark hands, blind eyes, and bloodless lips, This shattered remnant of a once fair form, Late home of desolation, now the husk And ruined chrysalis of a regal spirit That up to heaven hath parted on the wing! But thou, to Rome returning with hot speed, Tell the high Vicar of the Fold of Christ How that lost sheep his rescuing hand would reach, Although by thee unfound, is found in deed, And in the Shepherd's bosom lies at peace." And they that heard him lifted up the voice And wept. But they that stood about the hills Far off, not knowing, ceased not to cry out, "Glory to God that makes the bare bough green!" Till Echo, from the inmost heart of all That mellowing morn blown open like a rose To round and ripen to the perfect noon, Resounded, "Glory! glory!" and the rocks From glen to glen rang, "Glory unto God!" And so those twain, severed by Life and Sin, By Love and Death united, in one grave Slept. But Sir Wolfram passed into the wilds: There, with long labor of his hands, he hewed A hermitage from out the hollow rock, Wherein he dwelt, a solitary man. There, many a year, at nightfall or at dawn, The pilgrim paused, nor ever paused in vain, For words of cheer along his weary way. But once, upon a windy night, men heard A noise of rustling wings, and at the dawn They found the hermit parted to his peace. The place is yet. The youngest pilgrim knows, And loves it. Three gray rocks; and, over these, A mountain ash that, mourning, bead by bead, Drops her red rosary on a ruined cell. So sang the Saxon Bard. And when he ceased, The women's cheeks were wet with tears; but all The broad-blown Barons roared applause, and flowed The jostling tankards prodigal of wine. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A BALLAD OF TANNHAUSER by JOHN DAVIDSON TANNHAUSER by WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE THE LAST WISH by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON THE WANDERER: 2. IN FRANCE: AUX ITALIENS by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON THE WANDERER: 2. IN FRANCE: THE CHESSBOARD by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON THE WANDERER: 2. IN FRANCE: THE PORTRAIT by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON A BIRD AT SUNSET by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON A FAREWELL by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON A SOUL'S LOSS by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |
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