THE ROAD to En-dor is easy to tread | |
| For Mother or yearning Wife. | |
| There, it is sure, we shall meet our Dead | |
| As they were even in life. | |
| Earth has not dreamed of the blessing in store | 5 |
| For desolate hearts on the road to En-dor. | |
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| Whispers shall comfort us out of the dark— | |
| Hands—ah God!—that we knew! | |
| Visions and voices—look and hark!— | |
| Shall prove that the tale is true, | 10 |
| And that those who have passed to the further shore | |
| May be hailed—at a price—on the road to En-dor. | |
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| But they are so deep in their new eclipse | |
| Nothing they say can reach, | |
| Unless it be uttered by alien lips | 15 |
| And framed in a stranger’s speech. | |
| The son must send word to the mother that bore, | |
| Through an hireling’s mouth. ’Tis the rule of En-dor. | |
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| And not for nothing these gifts are shown | |
| By such as delight our dead. | 20 |
| They must twitch and stiffen and slaver and groan | |
| Ere the eyes are set in the head, | |
| And the voice from the belly begins. Therefore, | |
| We pay them a wage where they ply at En-dor. | |
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| Even so, we have need of faith | 25 |
| And patience to follow the clue. | |
| Often, at first, what the dear one saith | |
| Is babble, or jest, or untrue. | |
| (Lying spirits perplex us sore | |
| Till our loves—and their lives—are well-known at En-dor)…. | 30 |
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| Oh the road to En-dor is the oldest road | |
| And the craziest road of all! | |
| Straight it runs to the Witch’s abode, | |
| As it did in the days of Saul, | |
| And nothing has changed of the sorrow in store | 35 |
| For such as go down on the road to En-dor! | |
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