• Author: Unknown
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 5
• Page Number:
• Date: 6 21 1916
• Tags:
• poetry
• advice

WATER THAT HAS PASSED An Old Poem Listen to the water mill, Through the livelong day, How the clanking of the wheel Wears the hours away. Languidly the autum wind Stirs the greenwood leaves; From the fields the reapers sing. "Binding up the sheaves;" And a proverb haunts my mind, As a‘spell it casts:"The mill will never grind With the water that has passed" Take the lesson to thyself, Living 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 The 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 yet the daylight shines, Man of strength and will; Never does the streamlet glide Unless by the mill. Wait not until to-morrow's sun Beams upon the way; All that thou canst call thine own Lies in thy to-day. Power, intellect and health, May not, cannot 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 savedBy 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. —Anonymous