  Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill, And, minuting the long day's loss, The cedar's shadow, slow and still, Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss. The aspen's leaves are scarce astir; Only the little mill sends up Its busy, never-ceasing burr. Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems 10The road along the mill-pond's brink, From 'neath the arching barberry-stems My footstep scares the shy chewink. Beneath a bony buttonwood The mill's red door lets forth the din; 15The whitened miller, dust-imbued, Flits past the square of dark within. No mountain torrent's strength is here; Sweet Beaver, child of forest still, 20Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, And gently waits the miller's will. Swift slips Undine along the race Unheard, and then, with flashing bound, Floods the dull wheel with light and grace, And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round. 25The miller dreams not at what cost, The quivering millstones hum and whirl, Nor how for every turn are tost Armfuls of diamond and of pearl. But Summer cleared my happier eyes 30With drops of some celestial juice, To see how Beauty underlies, Forevermore each form of use. And more; methought I saw that flood, Which now so dull and darkling steals, 35Thick, here and there, with human blood, To turn the world's laborious wheels. No more than doth the miller there, Shut in our several cells, do we Know with what waste of beauty rare 40Moves every day's machinery. Surely the wiser time shall come When this fine overplus of might, No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, Shall leap to music and to light. 45In that new childhood of the Earth Life of itself shall dance and play, Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth, And labor meet delight half-way.— |
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