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.