There's a cry from out the loneliness -- oh, listen, Honey, listen! <br /> Do you hear it, do you fear it, you're a-holding of me so? <br />You're a-sobbing in your sleep, dear, and your lashes, how they glisten -- <br /> Do you hear the Little Voices all a-begging me to go? <br /> <br />All a-begging me to leave you. Day and night they're pleading, praying, <br /> On the North-wind, on the West-wind, from the peak and from the plain; <br />Night and day they never leave me -- do you know what they are saying? <br /> "He was ours before you got him, and we want him once again." <br /> <br />Yes, they're wanting me, they're haunting me, the awful lonely places; <br /> They're whining and they're whimpering as if each had a soul; <br />They're calling from the wilderness, the vast and God-like spaces, <br /> The stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole. <br /> <br />They miss my little camp-fires, ever brightly, bravely gleaming <br /> In the womb of desolation, where was never man before; <br />As comradeless I sought them, lion-hearted, loving, dreaming, <br /> And they hailed me as a comrade, and they loved me evermore. <br /> <br />And now they're all a-crying, and it's no use me denying; <br /> The spell of them is on me and I'm helpless as a child; <br />My heart is aching, aching, but I hear them, sleeping, waking; <br /> It's the Lure of Little Voices, it's the mandate of the Wild. <br /> <br />I'm afraid to tell you, Honey, I can take no bitter leaving; <br /> But softly in the sleep-time from your love I'll steal away. <br />Oh, it's cruel, dearie, cruel, and it's God knows how I'm grieving; <br /> But His loneliness is calling, and He knows I must obey.<br /><br />Robert William Service<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-lure-of-little-voices/
