When the sun falls asleep in the West,

And watch the gray Twilight walk over the hill

In garments of night partly dressed,

And see, through the rooms of my neighbor’s mill,

How she creeps like an unbidden guest.

I love the low hum of the numberless wheels—

They echo the heart-beats of time,

Each unto my pen its purpose reveals,

Like the magic of meter and rhyme;

Or, as to the soul that in penitence kneels,

Doth the sound of a slow vesper chime.

We have been friends together, this old mill and I,

Yes, friends that are true, tried, and strong;

If over us gather a gray winter sky

We faced it sometimes with a song,

Or braved it in silence, scarce knowing why,

As together we labored along.

I fancy sometimes as I sit here alone

With the calm of the night in my heart,

When from the low roof the pigeons have flown,

And the stars their sweet stories impart,

That this mill unto me in a strange undertone

Is speaking as heart unto heart.

That it bids me look into the granary room

What else do I scan through the moonlight’s lace

That scallops the window panes;

Why, the dear old miller’s honest face,

He’s counting his losses and gains,

And methinks on his visage I can trace

A look that my own heart pains.

Ah! think of the thousands his bounty feeds—

We beggars encircle his door,

While he scatters alike his bundle of seeds

To the humble, the rich, and the poor.

Sure there’s a reward for such generous deeds,

A reward that is brighter than ore!

But the lights have gone out of my neighbor’s mill,

And pale grows the red in the West;

The Night has crept up to my own window-sill

And pillowed my head on her breast,

While over the way—how peaceful and still!

The old mill’s asleep and at rest.