Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Water-mill

As I was correcting reading assignments from last year (another item on my to-do list mentioned last week!), I came across this poem in one of the girls' readers. The author is not named.

Listen to the water-mill;
Through the live-long day
How the clanking of the wheels
Wears the hours away!

Lazily the autumn wind
Stirs the greenwood leaves,
While in the fields the reapers sing,
Binding up the sheaves.

Then comes this saying to my mind --
A saying true to the last --
"The mill will never, never grind
With the water that has passed."

Take this lesson to yourself,
And study it through and through;
For golden years are fleeting by,
And youth is passing too.

Learn to make the most of life,
Lose no happy day;
For time will never bring you back
The moments thrown away.

Leave no tender word unsaid;
And love while life shall last.
"The mill will never, never grind
With the water that has passed."

Work while yet the daylight shines,
Man of strength and will!
Never does the mill-stream glide
Vainly by the mill.

Wait not till to-morrow's sun
Beams upon the way;
All that you can call your own
Lies in your to-day.

Clear mind, strong body, youth and health,
May not, cannot last;
"The mill will never, never grind
With the water that has passed."

1 comment:

  1. What a beautiful poem and your reflection is even more beautiful and heart felt. I, too, constantly struggle with the same things. Did I pay enough attention, do they know I love them, did I yell too much today? Trying, trying so hard to live and appreciate each of them right where they are right now and enjoy them. So many times I feel burdoned instead of blessed.

    I read somewhere to take each childs age right now and think about how fast that time went and then double that age, and imagine them at that age, because those next years will go faster than the first!! It really makes you think!!

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