The Water That's Passed

The Water That’s Passed
 
Listen to the water-mill,
     Through the live-long day,
How the clanking of the wheels
     Wears the hours away!
Lanquidly the autumn wind
     Stirs the greenwood leaves;
From the fields the reapers sing,
     Binding up the sheaves;
And a proverb haunts my mind,
     As a spell is cast;
“The mill will never grind
     With the water that has passed.”
 
Take the lesson to thyself,
     Loving heart and true;
Golden years are fleeting by,
     Youth is passing, too;
Learn to make the most of life,
     Lose no happy day,
Time will never bring thee back
     Chances swept away.
Leave no tender word unsaid,
     Love while life shall last;
“The mill will never grind
     With the water that has passed.”
 
Work while the daylight shines
     Man of strength and will;
Never does the streamlet glide
     Useless by the mill.
Wait not till to-morrow’s sun
     Beams up on the way;
All that thou cans’t call thy own
     Lies in thy to-day.
Power, intellect and health
     May not, can not last;
“The mill will never grind
     With the water that has passed.”
 
Oh, the wasted hours of life
     That have drifted by!
Oh, the good we might have done,
     Lost without a sigh;
Love that we might once have saved
     By a single word;
Thoughts conceived, but never penned,
     Perishing unheard.
Take the proverb to thine heart,
     Take! oh, hold it fast!
“The mill will never grind
     With the water that has passed.”
 
By D. C. McCallum