like a procession seen in dreams--slow,
hazy, graven yet moving, a part of the ancient hills themselves; upon
the river great rafts, manned by scarlet-vested crews, swerved and
swam, guided by the gigantic oars which needed five men to lift and
swayargonauts they from the sweet-smelling forests to the salt-smelling
main. In winter the little city lay still under a coverlet of pure
white, with the mists from the river and the great falls above frozen
upon the trees, clothing them as graciously as with white samite; so
that far as eye could see there was a heavenly purity upon all, covering
every mean and distorted thing. There were days when no wind stirred
anywhere, and the gorgeous sun made the little city and all the land
round about a pretty silver kingdom, where Oberon and his courtiers
might have danced and been glad. Often, too, you could hear a distant
wood-cutter's axe make a pleasant song in the air, and the wood-cutter
himself, as the hickory and steel swung in a shining half-circle to
the bole of balsam, was clad in the bright livery of frost, his breath
issuing in grey smoke like life itself, mystic and peculiar, man, axe,
tree, and breath one common being. And when, by-and-by, the woodcutter
added a song of his own to the song his axe made, the illusion was not
lost, but rather heightened; for it, too, was part of the unassuming
pride of nature, childlike in its simplicity, primeval in its suggestion
and expression. The song had a soft monotony, swinging backwards and
forwards to the waving axe like the pendulum of a clock. It began with a
low humming, as one could think man made before he heard the Voice which
taught him how to speak. And then came the words:

"None shall stand in the way of the lord,
The lord of the Earth--of the rivers and trees,
Of the cattle and fields and vines!
Hew!
Here shall I build me my cedar home,
A city with gates, a road to the sea
For I am the lord of the Earth!
Hew! Hew!
Hew and hew, and the sap of the tree
Shall be yours, and your bones shall be strong,
Shall be yours, and your heart shall rejoice,
Shall be yours, and the city be yours,
And the key of its gates be the key
Of the home where your little ones dwell.
Hew and be strong! Hew and rejoice!
For man is the lord of the Earth,
And God is the Lord over all!"

And so long as the li