They Would Not Come

I TRAVELLED to where in her lifetime She’d knelt at morning prayer, To call her up as if there; But she paid no heed to my suing, As though her old haunt could win not A thought from her spirit, or care.

I went where my friend had lectioned The prophets in high declaim, That my soul’s ear the same Full tones should catch as aforetime; But silenced by gear of the Present Was the voice that once there came!

Where the ocean had sprayed our banquet I stood, to recall it as then: The same eluding again! No vision. Shows contingent Affrighted it further from me Even than from my home-den.

When I found them no responders, But fugitives prone to flee From where they had used to be, It vouched I had been led hither As by night wisps in bogland, And bruised the heart of me!