THE CHAP THAT SWINGS THE AXE

Sing a song of paper; first the tall, straight

spruce,

Torn from off the mountains for the roaring

presses’ use.

—A shrieking laceration by the “barker” and

the saw;

A slow, grim maceration in the grinder’s grum-

bling maw;

A dizzy dash through calenders and over whir-

ring rolls,

—And the press can smut the paper so to save

or damn your souls;

The press has got the paper, it can give you lies

or facts

—That vexes not the fellow up in Maine who

swings the axe.

Chock!

Chock!

Chock!

The throb stuttered up from the heart of the

wood,

Erratic and faint, yet the trees understood,

—Though distant and dull like the tick of a

clock

It started a tremor through all the great flock.

King Spruce was a-shiver and rooted with dread,

While past him to safety the wood people fled;

The fox with his muzzle turned backward to

snuff

The bear trundling on like an animate muff,

And rabbits up-ending in wonder and fright,

Then scudding once more with the others in

flight.

Yet that which has reason most urgent to flee

Stands grim in the rout of the panic—the

Tree!

While up the long slope, glaring red ’gainst the

snow,—

His shirt of the hue of the butcher,—the foe,

Beating fierce at the trunks with relentless

attacks,

Comes on to the slaughter, the Man with the Axe.

Chock!

Chock!

Chock!

Shudder and totter and shiver and rock!

—Pygmy assailing with dull steady knock.

Trunk yawning wide with a hideous gash.

Snow-covered limbs thrown a-sprawl; and

then crash!

The pens and the presses are waiting, and eyes

That will glow with delight, or dilate with sur-

prise.

For there in the heart of the spruce there is

rolled

The fabric for thousands of stories untold.

And on the white paper may later be spread

The fall of a nation, or fame of one dead

Who now strides abroad in his health and suc-

cess,

But will pass to the tomb when that log meets

the press.

There under the bark of that spruce there is

furled

A web that will carry the news of a world,

That clamors and crowds at the swaying red

backs

Of the toilers of Maine, the rough men of the

axe.