From his leal servant, Friar Lodovick; He hath vast lore and great authority, And may absolve you freely of your sin." Over the rolling hills, through summer fields, By noisy villages and lonely lanes, Through glowing days, when all the landscape stretched Shimmering in the heat, a pilgrim fared Towards the cathedral town. Sir Tannhauser Had donned the mournful sackcloth, girt his loins With a coarse rope that ate into his flesh, Muffled a cowl about his shaven head, Hung a great leaden cross around his neck; And bearing in his hands a knotty staff, With swollen, sandaled feet he held his course. He snatched scant rest at twilight or at dawn, When his forced travel was least difficult. But most he journeyed when the sky, o'ercast, Uprolled its threatening clouds of dusky blue, And angry thunder grumbled through the hills, And earth grew dark at noonday, till the flash Of the thin lightning through the wide sky leapt. And tumbling showers scoured along the plain. Then folk who saw the pilgrim penitent, Drenched, weird, and hastening as as to some strange doom, Swore that the wandering Jew had crossed their land, And the Lord Christ had sent the deadly bolt Harmless upon his cursed, immortal head. At length the hill-side city's spires and roofs, With all its western windows smitten red By a rich sunset, and with massive towers Of its cathedral overtopping all, greeted his sight. Some weary paces more, And as the twilight deepened in the streets, He stood within the minster. How serene, In sculptured calm of centuries, it seemed! How cool and spacious all the dim-lit aisles, Still hazy with fumes of frankincense! The vesper had been said, yet here and there A wrinkled beldam, or mourner veiled, Or burly burgher on the cold floor knelt, And still the organist, with wandering hands, Drew from the keys mysterious melodies, And filled the church with flying waifs of song, That with ethereal beauty moved the soul To a more tender prayer and gentler faith Than choral anthems and the solemn mass. A thousand memories, sweet to bitterness, Rushed on the knight and filled his eyes with tears; Youth's blamelessness and faith forever lost, The love of his neglected lyre, his art, Revived by these aerial harmonies. He was unworthy now to touch the strings, Too base to stir men's soul to ecstasy And high resolves, as in the days agone; And yet, with all his spirit's earnestness, He yearned to feel the lyre between his hands, To utter all the trouble of his life Unto the Muse who understands and helps. Outworn with travel, soothed to drowsiness By dying music and sweet-scented air, His limbs relaxed, and sleep possessed his frame.