The Lure Of Little Voices

There's a cry from out the loneliness — oh, listen,

Honey, listen!    Do you hear it, do you fear it, you're a-holding of me so?

You're a-sobbing in your sleep, dear, and your lashes, how they glisten —    Do you hear the Little Voices all a-begging me to go?

All a-begging me to leave you.

Day and night they're pleading, praying,    On the North-wind, on the West-wind, from the peak and from the plain;

Night and day they never leave me — do you know what they are saying?    "He was ours before you got him, and we want him once again."Yes, they're wanting me, they're haunting me, the awful lonely places;    They're whining and they're whimpering as if each had a soul;

They're calling from the wilderness, the vast and God-like spaces,    The stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole.

They miss my little camp-fires, ever brightly, bravely gleaming    In the womb of desolation, where was never man before;

As comradeless I sought them, lion-hearted, loving, dreaming,    And they hailed me as a comrade, and they loved me evermore.

And now they're all a-crying, and it's no use me denying;    The spell of them is on me and I'm helpless as a child;

My heart is aching, aching, but I hear them, sleeping, waking;    It's the Lure of Little Voices, it's the mandate of the Wild.

I'm afraid to tell you,

Honey,

I can take no bitter leaving;    But softly in the sleep-time from your love I'll steal away.

Oh, it's cruel, dearie, cruel, and it's God knows how I'm grieving;    But His loneliness is calling, and He knows I must obey.