The Mill

Deep in the evening slowly turns the mill
Against a sky with melancholy pale;
It turns and turns, its muddy-coloured sail
Is infinitely heavy, tired, and ill.

Its arms, complaining arms, in the dawn's pink
Rose, rose and fell; and in this o'ercast eve,
And deadened nature's silence, still they heave
Themselves aloft, and weary till they sink.

Winter's sick day lies on the fields to sleep;
The clouds are tired of sombre journeyings;
And past the wood that gathered shadow flings
The ruts towards a dead horizon creep.

Around a pale pond huts of beechwood built
Despondently squat near the rusty reeds;
A lamp of brass hung from the ceiling bleeds
Upon the wall and windows blots of gilt.

And in the vast plain, with their ragged eyes
Of windows patched, the suffering hovels watch
The worn-out mill the bleak horizon notch,--
The tired mill turning, turning till it dies.