Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
The Old Grist-Mill
By Richard Henry Stoddard (18251903)B
With bending roof and leaning wall;
So old, that when the winds are wild,
The miller trembles lest it fall:
And yet it baffles wind and rain,
Our brave old Mill! and will again.
The gates are up, the waters pour,
And tread the old wheel’s slippery round,
The lowest step forevermore.
Methinks they fume, and chafe with ire,
Because they cannot climb it higher.
When harvests fill the neighboring plains,
Up to the mill the farmers drive,
And back anon with loaded wains:
And when the children come from school
They stop, and watch its foamy pool.
But peeping in the open door
You see the miller flitting round,
The dusty bags along the floor,
The whirling shaft, the clattering spout,
And the yellow meal a-pouring out!
Rising and falling in the breeze;
And when the sunlight strikes its mist
It glitters like a swarm of bees:
Or like the cloud of smoke and light
Above a blacksmith’s forge at night.
It still recalls my boyish prime;
’T is changed since then, and so am I,
We both have known the touch of time:
The mill is crumbling in decay,
And I—my hair is early gray.
And watch the current sweep along:
And when the flood-gates of my heart
Are raised it turns the wheel of Song:
But scant, as yet, the harvest brought
From out the golden fields of Thought!