Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/285

 Listen to the water-mill;
 * Through the livelong day,

How the clicking of its wheel
 * Wears the hours away!

Languidly the autumn wind,
 * Stirs the forest leaves,

From the field the reapers sing,
 * Binding up their sheaves;

And a proverb haunts my mind
 * As a spell is cast—

“The mill cannot grind
 * With the water that is past.”

Autumn winds revive no more
 * Leaves that once are shed,

And the sickle cannot reap
 * Corn once gatherèd;

Flows the ruffled streamlet on,
 * Tranquil, deep, and still;

Never gliding back again
 * To the water-mill;

Truly speaks the proverb old
 * With a meaning vast—

“The mill cannot grind
 * With the water that is past.”