At The Mill.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1994, 18 April 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

At The Mill.

What do you see my farmer ? Gray walls of wood and stone, A mill wheel turning to grind your grist, And turning for that alone. You hear the mill's hoarse murmur, The plash of the tumbling rill, As you plod with your oxen, slowly down The sunny slope of the hill. The heavens are blue above you, There's sun and shade on the road, You touch the brindled backs of your team And reckon the bags in the load. You clip the heads of the daisies, And wonder that God should neod To litter the fields with the staring blooms Of a stubborn and worthless weed. You're honest and true and sturdy ; Here, give me your brawny hand — A singer of idle songs I greet Tho farmer who tills tho land. Plod home with your grist in the gloaming : The baby crows at the gate ; And over the hills by the pasture barß The lowing cattle wait. What do I see, my farmer ? The mill and tho rill and the wheel, The moss on the shingles, the mould on the stones, And the'flo&ting mists of meal. But the poets' vision is olearor, Revealing the hidden things : I see the rivulet flow to the sea From cool, clear woodland springs. I sec the brown fields quicken With the green of tho growing wheat, When the swallow's a-tilt at the bending eaves, And the breath of the morn is sweet. I see the swaying reapers In fields of the golden grain ; And oxen that pant in the summer sun, Yoked to a loaded wain. I see white sails oareening On the opal-tinted seas, When the silvery sunlight glints the waves That are stirred by a freshening brce/c. I see the storm rack gather, That blots out the evening star ; And flung in the foam of a billow's orost, A drowned man lashed to a spar. I see in a city's shadows A figure that creeps and scrawls, "Give blood, or bread," while tho wine flows red And there's mirth in tho city halls. I sco a rich man's darlings, Aa fresh aa the roie's bloom ; And tho gaunt, white face of a little child, Dead in a barren room. Plod home with your grist, my farmer, Nor heed hew tho wide world fares ; The eyes that are dearest are saddest alwny, With their burden of alien cares. Hushed is the millstone's murmur, The dripping wheel is still, And over the dusky vale I hear £JThe song of the whippoorwill.