The Lesson of the Water-Wheel.
Listen to the water-mill;
Through the live-long day—
How the clinking of its wheel
Wears the hours away.
Languidly the autumn wind
Stirs the greenwood leaves,
From the field the reapers sing,
Binding up their sheaves;
And a proverb haunts my mind,
As a spell is cast,
“The mill cannot grind
With the water that is past.” Autumn winds revive no more
Leaves that are once shed,
And the sickle cannot reap
Corn once gathered;
And the ruffled 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 cannot grind
With the water that is past.” 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,
Love, while love shall last;
“The mill cannot grind
With the water that is past.” Work, while the daylight shines,
Man of strength and will;
Never does the streamlet glide
Useless by the mill—
Wait not till to-morrow's sun
Beams upon the way,
All that thou canst call thy own
Lies in thy to-day;
Power, and intellect, and health,
May not always last:
“The mill cannot grind
With the water that is past.” Oh! the wasted hours of life,
That have drifted by—
Oh! the good that might have been,
Lost without a sigh.
Love, that we might once have saved
By a single word,
Thoughts conceived, but never penned,
Perishing unheard;
Take the proverb to thyself,
Take, and hold it fast,
“The mill cannot grind
With the water that is past.”