Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses, The

<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"></SPAN></p> <h2> The Lure of Little Voices </h2> <p>There's a cry from out the loneliness &mdash; 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 &mdash;<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 &mdash; 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/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />