O Kundry!
Sinful and yet desiring to be helped,
Enthralled of sin, yet seeking after God!
Thou art our human nature, after all,--
Strange contradiction, mingled love and hate,
Half demon and half angel in thy moods!
PARSIFAL. PART III.
THE CROWNING OF PARSIFAL
Morning was breaking in the pleasant land,
Where rising meadows full of fragrant flowers
Skirt with their beauty the deep forest wilds,
That lead to rocky cliffs among whose peaks
Lies Monsalvat, the castle of the Grail.
Forth from a hut that leans against the rock,
Close to a woodland spring, came Gurnemanz,
The faithful knight and noble counsellor,
But now a lonely hermit of the woods,
Clad in the sacred tunic of the Grail,
Grown very old and bent, and hair snow-white.
He listened for awhile, then spake: "What moans
From yonder thicket come? No forest beast
Doth utter cry so piteous and sad.
This holy morn, the holiest of the year,
Doth bring to Nature a deep-thrilling joy.
'T is only humankind that can be sad.
Ah! there again the grieving and the moans,--
Methinks I know that sad despairing cry.
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