{
 "id": "robert-w-service/the-lure-of-little-voices",
 "title": "The Lure of Little Voices",
 "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": 10,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 73,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "There’s a cry from out the Loneliness⁠—Oh, listen, Honey, listen!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do you hear it, do you fear it, you’re a-holding of me so?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You’re a-sobbing in your sleep, dear, and your lashes, how they glisten⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do you hear the Little Voices all a-begging me to go?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All a-begging me to leave you. Day and night they’re pleading, praying,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the North-wind, on the West-wind, from the peak and from the plain;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Night and day they never leave me⁠—do you know what they are saying?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“He was ours before you got him, and we want him once again.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yes, they’re wanting me, they’re haunting me, the awful lonely places;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They’re whining and they’re whimpering as if each had a soul;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They’re calling from the wilderness, the vast and godlike spaces,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They miss my little campfires, ever brightly, bravely gleaming",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the womb of desolation where was never man before;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As comradeless I sought them, lionhearted, loving, dreaming;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they hailed me as a comrade, and they loved me evermore.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And now they’re all a-crying, and it’s no use me denying:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The spell of them is on me and I’m helpless as a child;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My heart is aching, aching, but I hear them sleeping, waking;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s the Lure of Little Voices, it’s the mandate of the Wild.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I’m afraid to tell you, Honey, I can take no bitter leaving;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But softly in the sleep-time from your love I’ll steal away.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, it’s cruel, dearie, cruel, and it’s God knows how I’m grieving;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But His Loneliness is calling and He knows I must obey.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}