{
 "id": "robert-w-service/the-call-of-the-wild",
 "title": "The Call of the Wild",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert W. Service",
 "poet_slug": "robert-w-service",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Songs of a Sourdough",
 "book_slug": "songs-of-a-sourdough",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 4,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1907,
  "venue": "Songs of a Sourdough (1907)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-w-service_songs-of-a-sourdough",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25546",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 80,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God’s sake go and do it;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sagebrush desolation,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you whistled bits of ragtime at the end of all creation,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And learned to know the desert’s little ways?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you camped upon the foothills, have you galloped o’er the ranges,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you chummed up with the mesa? Do you know its moods and changes?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then listen to the wild⁠—it’s calling you.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig a-quiver?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you broken trail on snowshoes? mushed your huskies up the river,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you marked the map’s void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And though grim as hell the worst is, can you round it off with curses?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then hearken to the wild⁠—it’s wanting you.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Have you suffered, starved, and triumphed grovelled, down, yet grasped at glory,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“Done things” just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you seen God in His splendours, heard the text that nature renders?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(You’ll never hear it in the family pew.)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then listen to the wild⁠—it’s calling you.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They have soaked you in convention through and through;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They have put you in a showcase; you’re a credit to their teaching⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But can’t you hear the wild?⁠—it’s calling you.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let us journey to a lonely land I know.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There’s a whisper on the night-wind, there’s a star agleam to guide us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the wild is calling, calling⁠ ⁠… let us go.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}