Youth and the Old Mill
Youth
Old Mill, grind me corn
For my house by the thorn,
For I’m with the old folk,
Where the pigs in the poke
And the cows in the barn
And the peat’s on the stone
And the latchstring out-thrown....
Old Mill, grind me corn
For the winter morn.
OLD MILL
No grain can I grind thee, Modern Child,
My sails are tattered,
My grind stones scattered;
My cranks are riddled
With rust defiled...
But I’ll turn you a dream,
A Grey-Town dream,
At which many have smiled
And been beguiled.
YOUTH
Turn me a dream then, doughty Mill,
Flaring there on your windy hill
With your rickety arms spread on the sky;
Black crows from the cornfields passing you by,
Near the burying-ground where the Quakers sleep,
And the sailors home from the ranging deep
Turn me a dream, you strange old Mill,
Keeping your watch on the windy hill.
OLD MILL
Shall I turn you a dream of the Town Crier calling
His news ’gainst the tempest bawling?
Shall I turn you a dream of Three Vikings sailing
The rim of a low lying island hailing...?
Turn you a dream of a Smuggler grim
And the underground path for his mates and him?
Of Three forms walking a midnight road
To a lonely farmhouse where one light showed
And a paper signed with a white quill pen
That helped bring freedom to slave-born men?
Of a man who made a telescope
And lassoed the stars with a mental rope—
Of the woman who worked in a cottage small,
Whose name in science leads them all?
Of a knight who came and built a school?
Of a woman who broke a cast iron rule?
Of the Quaker forms and the gentle ways
That ruled all war out of the ways?
Of the Indians, watching the sun go down?
Of the whalers and gold seekers of renown?
YOUTH
Nay, Old Mill, I laugh in your face;
Turn me no dream of a Quaker past,
Turn me no dream of the tranquil ways,
Turn me a dream for my own tense days,
Turn me a dream for my cherishing—
A dream for believing;
A dream for my strength!
OLD MILL
Shall I turn you a dream for your loneliness?
A dream of the star-scattered faces about you,
And the plans and pleasures and pains that flout you?
Shall I tell of the voices that you must hear
Before some one Voice calls you clear?
(But whatever it be—for joy and sadness
Or triumph, defeat, or grief or gladness—
That I cannot know,
Said the Old Mill very low.)
YOUTH
Nay, Old Mill, if you know the voices
That make for a bold life’s chance and choices,
Turn me that dream!
OLD MILL
Only the sound of one voice, you shall hear,
A Voice that has known your soul forever;
A Voice that has called you and kept you wherever
You failed or won in your high endeavor—
The Voice of your Dream!
YOUTH
O Mill, give me no mystery;
I know the way of human history—
Turn me true dreams!
OLD MILL
Only the dream of Beauty, I know,
The long sky paved with the afterglow;
The moonlaced bog and the shimmering seas,
The floating mist through moorland trees;
The quiet color of twilight dunes,
The night heron croaking its ebb-tide runes;
The black-walled sky and the star-strung vines,
The pooling spread of the Island pines.
And the Sea’s voice borne on the salt mist breath,
Where the chained arbutus wandereth....
The strange glad swerve of the moorland road
And the great black shoulder of the wood....
(Only these things I know,
Said the Old Mill very low.)
YOUTH
Then Old Mill, since no dream you grind me
A dream of my own I will surely find me!
But as Youth weaves and catches the threads
Of a hundred human joys and dreads,
Youth sees the Old Mill standing there,
High on the hill with the West aflare...
And dark as it looms on the sky, it seems
The Old Mill steadily turns out dreams—.
“All’s well,” grinds the grave Old Mill;
“All’s well,” grinds the brave Old Mill;
“If your eyes and your heart hold loveliness,
And your mind and your soul know faithfulness,
And your eyes and your hands know steadiness....
You shall walk straight over the rim of the years
To the Vivid Land of all conquered fears;
With your heart set true and your eyes set straight,
You will grind good dreams from the grist of fate.”
(But that’s all I know,
Said the Old Mill very low.)