were gone too. The minstrels' songs seemed to me
an uninspired affair, dim of meaning, languid of execution. My
dreams were full of dull pain, my waking hours a dejected dream.
All capacity for joy forsook my heart. Heinrich, Heinrich, what
had you done to me?" The "singer bold," the "daring minstrel,"
is of a candour matching her own. "Oh, give praise to the god of
Love!" he cries; "He it was who touched my strings! He spoke to
you through my songs, and it is he who has brought me back to you!"
They unite in joyful praise of the hour which has revealed this
miracle-working of Love's.

Wolfram watching them from his distance sighs gently: "Thus fades
from all my life the light of hope!" Tannhaeuser, encountering him
as he hastens away, lets a wave of his joy overflow in an impetuous
embrace of the friend.

Elizabeth stands on the terrace overlooking the castle-court and
the valley to watch the lover out of sight, moved and simply happy
as a woman who is not a saint. Her whiteness loves that colour;
her paleness warms itself at that glow; her gentleness glories
in that force. She makes no question but that he is worthy of her
love. Her high spirituality has intuition no doubt of the vast
potentialities of good in that superabundant life, which of itself
seems a virtue as well as a charm.

When the Landgrave enters she cannot bear his searching eyes upon
her transparent face, and hides it against his breast. "Do I find
you in this hall which for so long time you have avoided? You are
lured at last by the song-festival we are preparing?" he questions
her. She cannot answer, she falters: "My uncle!... Oh, my kind
father!"--"Are you moved at last," he asks kindly, "to open your
heart to me?" She lifts her face and bravely raises her eyes. "Look
into my eyes, for speak I cannot!" He reads, and does not press
her. "Let then for a brief space longer your sweet secret remain
unspoken. Let the spell remain unbroken until yourself you have
power to loose it. Be it as you please! Song, which has awakened
and set working such wonders, shall to-day unfold the same and
crown them with consummation. Let the Lovely Art now take the work
in hand. The nobles of my lands already are assembling, bidden by
me to a singular feast. In greater numbers they flock than ever
before, having heard that you are to be Princess of the gathering."

The Hall of Minstrels gradually fills with these same nobles and
their ladies. They salute the Land