University of Virginia Library

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 quicken'd in her heart
As Walter of the Heron-chase began:
And now again, as when the plaintive lay
Of Wolfram warbled to harmonious close,
The crowd grew glad with plaudits; and again
Tannhäuser, ruffled, rose his height, and smote
Rude in the chords his prelude of reply:
To whom, while all the rustling hall was moved
With stormy indignation, stern up-rose,
Sharp in retort, Sir Wilfrid of the hills:
Scarce from his lips had parted the last word
When, through the rapturous praise that rang around,
Fierce from his seat up-rising, red with rage,
With scornful lip, and contumelious eye,
Tannhäuser clang'd among the chords, and sang:
Outflash'd Sir Wilfrid's weapon, and outleapt
From every angry eye a thousand darts
Of unsheath'd indignation, and a shout
Went up among the rafters, and the Hall
Sway'd to and fro with tumult; till the voice
Of our liege lord roared ‘Peace!’ and, 'midst the clang
Of those who parted the incensèd 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 neighbouring nobleness, and a stillness fell
On all, and in the stillness soft he sang:
Then, while great shouts went up of ‘Give the prize
To Wolfram,’ leapt Tannhäuser 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,
Tannhäuser, conscious of the last disgrace
Incurr'd by such song in such company,
Now bent to vaunt the vastness of his sin,
Thus, as in ecstacy, the song renew'd:
Up-rose on every side and rustled down
The affrighted dames; and, like the shuddering crowd
Of particolour'd leaves that flits before
The gust of mid October, all at once
A hundred jewell'd 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 remain'd,
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 watch'd the waste that widen'd in her life;
And look'd 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 blanch'd
Her countenance; and, over cloudy brows,
The shaken diamond made a restless light,
And trembled as the trembling star that hangs
O'er Cassiopeïa i' the windy north.
‘Ye Lieges of Thuringia! whose just scorn,
Sitting implacable 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 barb'd 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,
Holds mercy measureless as heaven is high.
Shuddering, ourselves have listen'd 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,
Invoking from the right hand of high God
His dread irrevocable angel, Death;
Yet not unwary how one spark of hell,
If unextinguish'd, 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 congeal'd,
Like frost on a waste water, in a place
Where rocks confront each other. Marshall'd 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-gnarlèd 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
Rush'd forward, and in narrowing circle sloped
Sharp rims of shining horror round the doom'd,
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, recoil'd the angry, baffled surge,
Leaving on either side a horrid hedge
Of rifted glare, as when the Red Sea waves
Hung heap'd and sunder'd, ere they roaring fell
On Egypt's chariots. So there came a hush;
And in the hush her voice, heavy with scorn:
Even then,
Even whilst he spake, like some sweet miracle,
From darkening lands that glimmer'd 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 beckon'd forth the better hope which leads
A man's life up along the rugged road
Of high resolve. Tannhäuser moved, as moves
The folded serpent smitten by the Spring
And stirr'd 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 toss'd
A loft his arms, and down to the great doors
With droop'd brows striding, groan'd ‘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 thro' the lurid arch;
A flying form along the glare beyond;
And he was gone. The scowling Eve reach'd out
Across the hills a fiery arm, and took
Tannhäuser to her, like a sudden death.
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 join'd,
Whirls circling o'er the madden'd 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,—stunn'd and strain'd, upon the peak
Poising one moment, ere she forward fall
To float, dishelm'd, a wreck upon the waves:
So rose, engender'd 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 jarr'd
The bases of her being, piteous wreck
Of ruin'd hopes, upon her couch she lay,
Of life and time oblivious; all her mind,
Lock'd in a rigid agony of grief,
Clasping, convulsed, its unwept woe; her heart
Whelm'd in mute misery; and her burthen'd 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 shatter'd frame;
And those unskill'd physicians of the mind—
Importunate, fond friends, a host of kin—
Drew her perforce from solitude, she pass'd
Back to the world, and walk'd 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 temper'd with the gift of tears.
So, through long weeks and many a weary moon,
Silent and self-involved, without a sigh,
She suffer'd. 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 blessèd Saints.
But chief for him she pray'd 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, wander'd from the pleasant ways,
Back to the pasture of the paths of peace.
So thrice a day, what time the blushing morn
Crimson'd the orient sky, and when the sun
Glared from mid-heaven, or glimmer'd in the west,
Fervent she pray'd; 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 kneel'd,
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 gather'd 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-provender'd days, Spring lightly came
And scatter'd sweets upon his sullen grave.
And twice the seasons pass'd, the sisters three
Doing glad service for their hoary brother,
And twice twelve moons had wax'd and waned, and twice
The weary world had pilgrim'd round the sun,
When from the outskirts of the land there came
Rumour 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 touch'd
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 turn'd 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 press'd
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 neighbouring copse
Swift as a startled hind, when the ghostly moon
Draws sudden o'er the silver'd heather-bells
The monstrous shadow of a cloud, she sped;
Pausing, low-crouch'd, 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 cumber'd steps, with wavering gait that told
Of bodily toil and trouble, with besoil'd
And tatter'd garments; natheless with glad eyes,
Whence look'd the soul disburthen'd of her sin,
Climbing the rude path, two by two they came.
And she, that watch'd with what intensest gaze
Them coming, saw old faces that she knew,
And every face turn'd skywards, while the lips
Pour'd out the heavenly psalm, and every soul
Sitting seraphic in the upturn'd eyes
With holy fervour rapt upon the song.
And still they came and pass'd, and still she gazed;
And still she thought, ‘Now comes he!’ and the chant
Went heavenwards, and the filèd pilgrims fared
Beside her, till their tale well-nigh 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 brush'd aside the sprays,
And from the thicket lean'd and look'd. The last
Of all the pilgrims stood within the ken
Of her keen gaze—save him all scann'd, and he
No sooner scann'd than cancell'd 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,
Clutch'd with wrung hands his robe, and gasp'd, ‘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 pass'd.
Then she, with that mute answer stabb'd to the heart,
Sprung forward, clutch'd 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 sigh'd,
Sigh'd in the singing of his psalm, and pass'd.
Then prone she fell upon her face, and prone
Within her mind Hope's shatter'd fabric fell—
The dear and delicate fabric of frail Hope
Wrought by the simple cunning of her thoughts,
That, labouring long, through many a dreamy day,
And many a vigil of the wakeful night,
Wistful had rear'd it, patiently, with pain,
From out the ruins of her ancient peace.
O, ancient Peace! that never shalt return;
O, ruin'd Hope! O, Fancy! over-fond,
Futile artificer that build'st on air,
Marr'd 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 pillow'd on a stone, her eyes
Wide open, fix'd into a ghastly stare
That knew no speculation; for her mind
Was dark, and all her faculty of thought
Compassionately cancell'd. But she lay
Not in the embrace of loyal Death, who keeps
His bride for ever, but in treacherous arms
Of Sleep that, sated, will restore to Grief
Her, snatch'd 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 rumour reach'd his ears
That, from their search for saving grace return'd,
The pilgrims all within the castle court
Were gather'd, flock'd about by happy friends,
Pass'd from his portal swiftly, and ran out
And join'd the clustering crowd. Full many a face,
Wasted and wan, he recogniz'd, and clasp'd
Full many a lean hand clutching at his own,
Of those who, stretch'd upon the grass, or propp'd
Against the boulder-stones, were press'd about
By weeping women, clamorous to unbind
Their sandal-thongs and bathe the bruisèd feet.
Then up and down, and swiftly through and through,
And round about, skirting the crowd, he hurried,
With greetings fair to all; till, fill'd with fear,
Half-hopeless of his quest, yet harbouring hope,
He paused perplex'd beside the castle gates.
There, at his side, the youngest of the train,
A blue-eyed pilgrim tarried, and to him
Turn'd Wolfram questioning of Tannhäuser'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 incensèd Vicar; and none knew
Whither he wander'd, to what desolate lands,
Hiding his anguish from the eyes of men.
Then Wolfram groan'd, and clasp'd 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 learn'd
Tannhäuser's fate, and fall'n beside the way.
And Wolfram, in the ghastly torchlight, saw
The white face of the Princess turn'd 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 crazèd man within the castle-court;
Whence issuing, with wild eyes and wandering gait,
He through the darkness, groaning, pass'd 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-brow'd caves, and hollow clefts
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 remember'd friend.
Sometimes (so fancy mock'd the fears she bred!)
He heard along the lone and eery land
Low demon laughters: and a sullen strain
Of horror swell'd 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 toll'd,
Or seem'd to toll, a knell: the breezes dropp'd:
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,
Call'd 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 seem'd the same,
At eve or dawn, as in the time gone by.
But, when the fourth day like a stranger slipp'd
To his unhonour'd grave, God's Angel pass'd
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 droop'd the quiet eyelids o'er the eyes
That Wolfram loved, to Wolfram's heart there came
A calmness like the calmness of a grave,
Wall'd 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 scarr'd and weather-wounded walls,
Sharp-jaggèd 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,
Flow'd 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,
Tannhäuser shone; ere sin came, and with sin
Sorrow. And now if yet Tannhäuser 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.
Whereat Tannhäuser, turning tearless eyes
On Wolfram, murmur'd mournfully, ‘If tears
‘Fiery as those from fallen seraphs distill'd,
Or centuries of prayers for pardon sigh'd
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
Wreck'd in this ruin'd 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 rainbow of discovenanted Hope.
Thou, therefore, Wolfram—for her face, when mine
Is dark for ever, thine eyes may still behold—
Tell her, if thou unblamed may'st speak of one
Sign'd cross by the curse of God and cancell'd 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 betray'd,
Wherewith I loved, and love her.’
There his voice,
Even as a wave that, touching on the shore
To which it travell'd, is shiver'd and diffused,
Sank, scatter'd into spray of wasteful sighs,
And back dissolved into the deeper grief.
‘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 alter'd 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, honour'd still by honourable men,
Shalt hear my name dishonour'd, thou may'st say,
“Greatly he grieved for that great sin he sinn'd.”
‘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 pour'd,
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 walk'd the earth,
Thine intercessionary Saint while now
For thee she sues about the Throne of Thrones,
Beyond the stars, our star, Elizabeth!’
Then Wolfram felt the shatter'd frame that lean'd
Across his breast with sudden spasms convulsed.
‘Dead! is she dead?’ Tannhäuser murmur'd, ‘dead!
Gone to the grave, so young! murder'd—by me!
Dead—and by my great sin! O Wolfram, turn
Thy face from mine. I am a dying man!’
And Wolfram answer'd, ‘Dying? ah, not thus!
‘Yet make one sign thou dost repent the past,
One word, but one! to say thou hast abhorr'd
That false she devil that, with her damnèd 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 Tannhäuser, 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-tassell'd tops, from birds and brooks
A hundred hallelujahs hail'd the light.
The whitethorn glisten'd from the wakening glen:
O'er golden gravel danced the dawning rills:
All the delighted leaves by copse and glade
Gamboll'd; and breezy bleatings came from flocks
Far off in pleasant pastures fed with dew.
But whilst, unconscious of the silent change
Thus stol'n 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 channell'd 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,
Tannhäuser 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 crownèd 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.
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, sever'd by Life and Sin,
By Love and Death united, in one grave
Slept. But Sir Wolfram pass'd into the wilds:
There, with long labour of his hands, he hew'd
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 grey rocks; and, over these,
A mountain ash that, mourning, bead by bead,
Drops her red rosary on a ruin'd cell.