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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GROWING GRAY by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON HASTE NOT! REST NOT! by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE IN THE SHADOWS: 2 by DAVID GRAY (1838-1861) UPON THE LOSS OF HIS MISTRESSES by ROBERT HERRICK UPON THE SAYING THAT MY VERSES WERE MADE BY ANOTHER by ANNE KILLIGREW |