Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu/119

And have it weighed with tho precision cool
And the nice logic of a reasoning mind.
This spiritual Father judged his crime
As the mad mischief of a reckless boy,
That called for strict, immediate punishment.
But Tannhäuser, who felt himself a man,
Though base, yet fallen through passions and rare gifts
Of an exuberant nature rankly rich,
And knew his weary head was growing gray
With a life s terrible experience,
Found his old sense of proper worth revive;
But modestly he ended : " Yet I felt,
O holy Father, in the church, this morn,
A strange security, a peace serene,
As though e en yet the Lord regarded me
With merciful compassion ; yea, as though
Even so vile a worm as I might work
Mine own salvation, through repentant prayers."
" Presumptuous man, it is no easy task
To expiate such sin ; a space of prayer
That deprecates the anger of the Lord,
A pilgrimage through pleasant summer lands,
May not atone for years of impious lust ;
Thy heart hath lied to thee in offering hope."
" Is there no hope on earth ? " the pilgrim sighed.
"None through thy penance," said the saintly man.
" Yet there may be through mediation, help.
There is a man who by a blameless life