| |
| BESIDE the stream the grist-mill stands, | |
| With bending roof and leaning wall; | |
| So old, that when the winds are wild, | |
| The miller trembles lest it fall: | |
| And yet it baffles wind and rain, | 5 |
| Our brave old Mill! and will again. | |
| |
| Its dam is steep, and hung with weeds: | |
| The gates are up, the waters pour, | |
| And tread the old wheel’s slippery round, | |
| The lowest step forevermore. | 10 |
| Methinks they fume, and chafe with ire, | |
| Because they cannot climb it higher. | |
| |
| From morn to night in autumn time, | |
| When harvests fill the neighboring plains, | |
| Up to the mill the farmers drive, | 15 |
| And back anon with loaded wains: | |
| And when the children come from school | |
| They stop, and watch its foamy pool. | |
| |
| The mill inside is small and dark; | |
| But peeping in the open door | 20 |
| You see the miller flitting round, | |
| The dusty bags along the floor, | |
| The whirling shaft, the clattering spout, | |
| And the yellow meal a-pouring out! | |
| |
| All day the meal is floating there, | 25 |
| Rising and falling in the breeze; | |
| And when the sunlight strikes its mist | |
| It glitters like a swarm of bees: | |
| Or like the cloud of smoke and light | |
| Above a blacksmith’s forge at night. | 30 |
| |
| I love our pleasant, quaint old Mill, | |
| It still recalls my boyish prime; | |
| ’T is changed since then, and so am I, | |
| We both have known the touch of time: | |
| The mill is crumbling in decay, | 35 |
| And I—my hair is early gray. | |
| |
| I stand beside the stream of Life, | |
| And watch the current sweep along: | |
| And when the flood-gates of my heart | |
| Are raised it turns the wheel of Song: | 40 |
| But scant, as yet, the harvest brought | |
| From out the golden fields of Thought! | |
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