Poem by Robert William Service

The Three Voices

The waves have a story to tell me,
    As I lie on the lonely beach; 
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,
    The wind has a lesson to teach; 
But the stars sing an anthem of glory
    I cannot put into speech.

The waves tell of ocean spaces,
    Of hearts that are wild and brave, 
Of populous city places,
    Of desolate shores they lave, 
Of men who sally in quest of gold
    To sink in an ocean grave.

The wind is a mighty roamer;
    He bids me keep me free, 
Clean from the taint of the gold-lust,
    Hardy and pure as he; 
Cling with my love to nature,
    As a child to the mother-knee.

But the stars throng out in their glory,
    And they sing of the God in man; 
They sing of the Mighty Master,
    Of the loom his fingers span, 
Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole,
    And weft in the wondrous plan.

Here by the camp-fire's flicker,
    Deep in my blanket curled, 
I long for the peace of the pine-gloom,
    When the scroll of the Lord is unfurled, 
And the wind and the wave are silent,
    And world is singing to world. 

1. Local Lad
2. Spanish Women
3. Shiela
4. The Front Tooth
5. Barcelona

Gerald Massey The Three Voices ("A WAILING voice comes up a desolate road")

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