PART II
THE TEMPTING OF PARSIFAL
Klingsor the dread magician plied his arts
And worked in shame his dastardly black deeds,
Within the inner keep of a great tower,--
The watch-tower of the grim and frowning castle.
Here in a dark and dismal rocky room,
Where Heaven's light could scarcely find a way,
And where around him lay his books and tools
Of hateful magic, littering the floor,
Steadfast he looked upon a metal mirror
That told the fates to him,--then muttered low:
"The time has come! Lo, how my tower entices
The guileless lad, who cometh like a child
With happy heart, and laughter on his lips.
Come, I must work my work by her who sleeps
In heavy slumber underneath my spell;
For in the past she did my deadliest deeds."
And in the gloom he kindled incense rare,
That filled the keep with blue unearthly smoke;
And sitting at the mirror once again,
He called with mystic gestures to the depths
That yawned beneath an opening in the floor:
"Uprise! Come forth! Draw near me at my will!
Thy master calls thee, nameless wanderer,
Rose-bloom of Hell, and ancient devil-queen!
A thousand times the earth has known thy face
In many forms of woman's wiles and sins,--
Herodias wert thou in ancient time,
And once again Gundryggia wert called
In old Norse days; but thou art Kundry now,
Symbol of woman's wile and cruel craft.
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