he leaves of Autumn will be
coming this way. It will be very beautiful. The sea is a very, very
wonderful place. I know all about it; I have heard shepherd boys
singing of it, and sometimes before a storm the gulls come up. It is
a place all blue and shining and full of pearls, and has in it coral
islands and isles of spice, and storms and galleons and the bones of
Drake. The sea is much greater than Man. When I come to the sea, he
will know that I have worked well for him. But I must hurry, for I
have much to do. This bridge delays me a little; some day I will
carry it away.'

'Oh, you must not do that,' said the road.

'Oh, not for a long time,' said the river. 'Some centuries
perhaps--and I have much to do besides. There is my song to sing, for
instance, and that alone is more beautiful than any noise that Man
makes.'

'All work is for Man,' said the road, 'and for the building of
cities. There is no beauty or romance or mystery in the sea except
for the men that sail abroad upon it, and for those that stay at
home and dream of them. As for your song, it rings night and
morning, year in, year out, in the ears of men that are born in
Wrellisford; at night it is part of their dreams, at morning it is
the voice of day, and so it becomes part of their souls. But the
song is not beautiful in itself. I take these men with your song in
their souls up over the edge of the valley and a long way off
beyond, and I am a strong and dusty road up there, and they go with
your song in their souls and turn it into music and gladden cities.
But nothing is the Work of the World except work for Man.'

'I wish I was quite sure about the Work of the World,' said the
stream; 'I wish I knew for certain for whom we work. I feel almost
sure that it is for the sea. He is very great and beautiful. I think
that there can be no greater master than the sea. I think that some
day he may be so full of romance and mystery and sound of sheep
bells and murmur of mist-hidden hills, which we streams shall have
brought him, that there will be no more music or beauty left in the
world, and all the world will end; and perhaps the streams shall
gather at the last, we all together, to the sea. Or perhaps the sea
will give us at the last unto each one his own again, giving back
all that he has garnered in the years--the little petals of the
apple-blossom and the mourned ones of the rhododendron, and our old
visions of the trees and sky