The Lure Of Little Voices

And though you know he love you so, and set you on love's throne,

Yet let your eyes but mock his sighs, and let your heart be stone,

Lest you be left (as I was left) attainted and alone.

From love's close kiss to hell's abyss is one sheer flight, I trow;

And wedding-ring and bridal bell are will-o'-wisps of woe;

And 'tis not wise to love too well, and this all women know.

Wherefore, the wolf-pack having gorged upon the lamb, their prey,

With siren smile and serpent guile I make the wolf-pack pay;

With velvet paws and flensing claws, a tigress roused to slay.

One who in youth sought truest truth, and found a devil's lies;

A symbol of the sin of man, a human sacrifice:

Yet shall I blame on man the shame? Could it be otherwise?

Was I not born to walk in scorn where others walk in pride?

The Maker marred, and evil-starred I drift upon His tide;

And He alone shall judge His own, so I His judgment bide.

_Fate has written a tragedy; its name is "The Human Heart."

The theatre is the House of Life, Woman the mummer's part:

The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start._

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.

THE SONG OF THE WAGE-SLAVE