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; so many memories have left the hills.
But who may say? For who knows the tides of the sea?'

'Be sure that it is all for Man,' said the road. 'For Man and the
making of cities.'

Something had come near on utterly silent feet.

'Peace, peace!' it said. 'You disturb the queenly night, who, having