The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses

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.