The Song by the Mill

The wheel turns, and the water falls;

shall we not linger here and rest?

The sun, grown weary of the day,

has lit his campfires in the West,

and far away a late bird calls.

The wheel turns, and the shadows fall

from off Time's spindle; you and I,

shall we have woven a cloth of gold,

to make Love brave in, ere we die

or grow too old to hear him call?

The wheel turns, and the water falls.

The singing stream that knew the hill

leaps to the wheel and, broken there,

goes coursing onwards, singing still,

and hasting where the deep sea calls.

The wheel stops. See, the shadows fall,

the sleeping sun no beacon shows.

Belov'd we too, even as the stream,

have known the breaking wheel it knows,

but hold our dream till death shall call.