The Water Mill

Listen to the water mill,

Through the livelong day;

How the clicking of the wheel

Wears the hours away.

Languidly the autumn wind

Stirs the withered leaves;

On the field the reapers sing,

Binding up the sheaves;

And a proverb haunts my mind,

And as a spell is cast,

"The mill will never grind

With the water that has passed."

Autumn winds revive no more

Leaves strewn o'er earth and main.

The sickle never more shall reap

The yellow, garnered grain;

And the rippling stream flows on

Tranquil, deep and still,

Never gliding back again

To the water mill.

Truly speaks the proverb old,

With a meaning vast:

"The mill will never grind

With the water that has passed."

Mabry Mill

Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia

Photograph by Priscilla Burgers

Take the lesson to thyself,

Loving heart and true;

Golden years are fleeting by,

Youth is passing, too.

Learn to make the most of life,

Lose no happy day!

Time will ne'er return again-

Sweet chances thrown away.

Leave no tender word unsaid,

But love while love shall last:

"The mill will never grind

With the water that has passed."

Work, while yet the sun doth shine,

Men of strength and will!

Never does the streamlet glide

Useless by the mill.

Wait not till tomorrow's sun

Beams brightly on thy way;

All that thou canst call thine own

Lies in this word: "Today!"

Power, intellect and health

Will not always last:

"The mill will never grind

With the water that has passed."

Old Crawford Farm Grist Mill

New England, USA

O, the wasted hours of life

That have swiftly drifted by!

O, the good we might have done!

Gone, lost without a sigh!

Love that we might once have saved

By a single kindly word;

Thoughts conceived, but ne'er expressed

Perishing unpenned, unheard!

Take the proverb to thy soul!

Take, and clasp it fast:

"The mill will never grind

With the water that has passed."

O love thy God and fellow man,

Thyself consider last;

For come it will when thou must scan

Dark errors of the past.

And when the fight of life is o'er

And earth recedes from view.

And heaven in all its glory shines.

'Midst the good, the pure, the true,

Then you will see more clearly

The proverb, deep and vast:

"The mill will never grind

With the water that has passed."

"The Water Mill"

Sarah Doudney

(1841-1926)

English poetess and writer