The Lure of Little Voices

Melody -

Robert W. Service, 1874-1958

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.


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