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.