Listen to the water-mill;
Through the livelong day,
How the clicking of its wheel
Wears the hours away!
Languidly the autumn wind,
Stirs the forest 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 once are shed,
And the sickle cannot reap
Corn once gatherèd;
Flows the ruffled streamlet 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,
True and loving heart;
Golden youth is fleeting by,
Summer hours depart;
Learn to make the most of life,
Lose no happy day;
Time will never bring thee back
Chances swept away!
Leave no tender word unsaid,
Love while love shall last —
“The mill cannot grind
With the water that is past.”

Work while yet 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 thy way,
All that thou canst call thine own
Lies in thy “To-day;”
Power, 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 thine heart,
Take, and hold it fast—
“The mill cannot grind
With the water that is past.”

O'er the midnight moorlands crying,
Thro' the cypress forests sighing,
In the night-wind madly flying,
Hellish forms with streaming hair;
In the barren branches creaking,
By the stagnant swamp-pools speaking,
Past the shore-cliffs ever shrieking,
Damn'd demons of despair.

Once, I think I half remember,
Ere the grey skies of November
Quench'd my youth's aspiring ember,
Liv'd there such a thing as bliss;
Skies that now are dark were beaming,
Bold and azure, splendid seeming
Till I learn'd it all was dreaming —
Deadly drowsiness of Dis.

But the stream of Time, swift flowing,
Brings the torment of half-knowing —
Dimly rushing, blindly going
Past the never-trodden lea;
And the voyager, repining,
Sees the wicked death-fires shining,
Hears the wicked petrel's whining
As he helpless drifts to sea.

Evil wings in ether beating;
Vultures at the spirit eating;
Things unseen forever fleeting
Black against the leering sky.
Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,
Clawing fiends of future sadness,
Mingle in a cloud of madness
Ever on the soul to lie.

Thus the living, lone and sobbing,
In the throes of anguish throbbing,
With the loathsome Furies robbing
Night and noon of peace and rest.
But beyond the groans and grating
Of abhorrent Life, is waiting
Sweet Oblivion, culminating
All the years of fruitless quest.