onging
Before thy blessed feet I lay.
I'll wrestle with the love I cherish'd,
Until in death its flame hath perish'd.
If of my sin thou wilt not shrive me,
Yet in this hour, oh grant thy aid!
Till thy eternal peace thou give me,
I vow to live and die thy maid.
And on thy bounty I will call,
That heav'nly grace on him may fall.'

This prayer ended, the broken-hearted Elizabeth slowly totters
away, while Wolfram von Eschenbach, who has seen by her pallid
face and wasted frame that the death she prays for will not
tarry long, sorrowfully realises at last that all his love can
save her no pang.

When the evening shadows have fallen, and the stars illumine the
sky, he is still lingering by the holy shrine where Elizabeth
has breathed her last prayer. The silence of the night is
suddenly broken by the sound of his harp, as he gives vent
to his sorrow by an invocation to the stars, among which his
lady-love is going to dwell ere-long, and as he sings the last
notes a pilgrim slowly draws near. Wolfram does not at first
recognise his old friend and rival Tannhaeuser in this dejected,
foot-sore traveller; but when he sees the worn face he anxiously
inquires whether he has been absolved, and warns him against
venturing within the precincts of the Wartburg unless he has
received Papal pardon for his sins.

Tannhaeuser, instead of answering this query, merely asks him
to point out the path, which he once found so easily, the path
leading to the Venus hill, and only when Wolfram renews his
questions does he vouchsafe him a brief account of his journey
to Rome. He tells how he trod the roughest roads barefooted,
how he journeyed through heat and cold, eschewing all comforts
and alleviation of his hard lot, how he knelt penitently before
every shrine, and how fervently he prayed for the forgiveness
of the sin which had darkened not only his life but that of
his beloved. Then, in faltering tones, he relates how the Pope
shrank from him upon hearing that he had sojourned for a year
in the Venus hill, and how sternly he declared there could be
no more hope of pardon for such a sin than to see his withered
staff blossom and bear leaves:--

'If thou hast shar'd the joys of Hell,
If thou unholy flames hast nurs'd
That in the hill of Venus dwell,
Thou art for evermore accurs'd!
And as this barren staff I hold
Ne'er will put forth a flower or leaf,
Thus shalt thou ne