8 DAME VENUS IN THURINGIA

Even to the Hörselberg they follow me, These men Thou couldst not save: the hollow hill Is thronged with them that have abandoned Thee To follow her that yet endures, and will Outlive all tenets. Canst Thou ever still Our revelry, O Christ? or canst Thou stay These lips that on my lover’s lips I lay, Deriding Thee unpunished? Nay, God wot, Here rest no pilgrims on Thy bloodless way, Where in the Hörselberg we know Thee not! We have no ending to our revelry; Of lust and drunkenness we have our fill: Thou hast the uplands, and the sun-bathed sea— My mother sea!—is subject to Thy will, Poor foolish Christ, that hadst not wit to kill Her whom Thou hadst discrowned. I may not stray Amid the fields of Paphos, and men pray No more to me in Eryx; yet no jot Of lust’s old worship dwindles, even to-day, Where in the Hörselberg we know Thee not. Wilt Thou not slay me for much blasphemy? Strike and have done! Whom kindlier shouldst Thou kill Than one begotten of the restive sea, Thus penned, and turned a potent poison till Man’s folly fail him?—I with futile skill Snare ceaselessly; and never see the day Smite huddling golden waves; nor feel the spray Make glad my lips. My godhood is forgot. I tread a hill more drear than Golgotha, Where in the Hörselberg we know Thee not. Christ, curse me not with immortality! I once was Aphroditê; must I be A thing unclean, and unto fools allot All fools may crave, even for eternity, Where in the Hörselberg we know Thee not?