replenishing by the hod-men; --Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices, The swing of their axes on the square-hewed log, shaping it toward the shape of a mast, The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, The butter-coloured chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes; The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats, stays against the sea; --The city fireman--the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-packed square, The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring, The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line, the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water, The slender, spasmic blue-white jets--the bringing to bear of the hooks and ladders, and their execution, The crash and cut-away of connecting woodwork, or through floors, if the fire smoulders under them, The crowd with their lit faces, watching--the glare and dense shadows; --The forger at his forge-furnace, and the user of iron after him, The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and temperer, The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel, and trying the edge with his thumb, The one who clean-shapes the handle and sets it firmly in the socket; The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also, The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers, The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice, The Roman lictors preceding the consuls, The antique European warrior with his axe in combat, The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head, The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe thither, The siege of revolted lieges determined for liberty, The summons to surrender, the battering at castle-gates, the truce and parley; The sack of an old city in its time, The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly, Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness, Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in the gripe of brigands, Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons despairing, The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds, The list of all executive deeds and words, just or unjust, The power of personality, just or unjust. 4. Muscle and pluck for ever! What invigorates life invigorates death, And the dead advance as much as the living advance, And the future is no more uncertain than the present, And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the _delicatesse_ of the earth and of man, And nothing endures but personal qualities.